Yet Again

by

Max Beerbohm

Till I gave myself the task of making a little selection from what Ihad written since last I formed a book of essays, I had no notion thatI had put, as it were, my eggs into so many baskets--The SaturdayReview, The New Quarterly, The New Liberal Review, Vanity Fair, TheDaily Mail, Literature, The Traveller, The Pall Mall Magazine, The MayBook, The Souvenir Book of Charing Cross Hospital Bazaar, The CornhillMagazine, Harper's Magazine, and The Anglo-Saxon Review. .. Ouf! But thesigh of relief that I heave at the end of the list is accompanied by asmile of thanks to the various authorities for letting me use here whatthey were so good as to require. 

M. B. 

CONTENTS

 THE FIRE SEEING PEOPLE OFF A MEMORY OF A MIDNIGHT EXPRESS PORRO UNUM. .. A CLUB IN RUINS '273' A STUDY IN DEJECTION A PATHETIC IMPOSTURE THE DECLINE OF THE GRACES WHISTLER'S WRITING ICHABOD GENERAL ELECTIONS A PARALLEL A MORRIS FOR MAY-DAY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS MANNER THE NAMING OF STREETS ON SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY A HOME-COMING 'THE RAGGED REGIMENT' THE HUMOUR OF THE PUBLIC DULCEDO JUDICIORUM

WORDS FOR PICTURES

 'HARLEQUIN' 'THE GARDEN OF LOVE' 'ARIANE ET DIONYSE' 'PETER THE DOMINICAN' 'L' OISEAU BLEU' 'MACBETH AND THE WITCHES' 'CARLOTTA GRISI' 'HO-TEI' 'THE VISIT'

THE FIRE

If I were 'seeing over' a house, and found in every room an iron cagelet into the wall, and were told by the caretaker that these cages werefor me to keep lions in, I think I should open my eyes rather wide. Yetnothing seems to me more natural than a fire in the grate. 

Doubtless, when I began to walk, one of my first excursions was to thefender, that I might gaze more nearly at the live thing roaring andraging behind it; and I dare say I dimly wondered by what blesseddispensation this creature was allowed in a domain so peaceful as mynursery. I do not think I ever needed to be warned against scaling thefender. I knew by instinct that the creature within it wasdangerous--fiercer still than the cat which had once strayed into theroom and scratched me for my advances. As I grew older, I ceased towonder at the creature's presence and learned to call it 'the fire, 'quite lightly. There are so many queer things in the world that we haveno time to go on wondering at the queerness of the things we seehabitually. It is not that these things are in themselves less queerthan they at first seemed to us. It is that our vision of them has beendimmed. We are lucky when by some chance we see again, for a fleetingmoment, this thing or that as we saw it when it first came within ourken. We are in the habit of saying that 'first impressions are best, 'and that we must approach every question 'with an open mind'; but weshirk the logical conclusion that we were wiser in our infancy than weare now. 'Make yourself even as a little child' we often say, butrecommending the process on moral rather than on intellectual grounds, and inwardly preening ourselves all the while on having 'put awaychildish things, ' as though clarity of vision were not one of them. 

I look around the room I am writing in--a pleasant room, and my own, yet how irresponsive, how smug and lifeless! The pattern of thewallpaper blamelessly repeats itself from wainscote to cornice; and thepictures are immobile and changeless within their glazed frames--faint, flat mimicries of life. The chairs and tables are just as theircarpenter fashioned them, and stand with stiff obedience just wherethey have been posted. On one side of the room, encased in coverings ofcloth and leather, are myriads of words, which to some people, but notto me, are a fair substitute for human company. All around me, in fact, are the products of modern civilisation. But in the whole room thereare but three things living: myself, my dog, and the fire in my grate. And of these lives the third is very much the most intensely vivid. Mydog is descended, doubtless, from prehistoric wolves; but you couldhardly decipher his pedigree on his mild, domesticated face. My dog isas tame as his master (in whose veins flows the blood of the oldcavemen). But time has not tamed fire. Fire is as wild a thing as whenPrometheus snatched it from the empyrean. Fire in my grate is as fierceand terrible a thing as when it was lit by my ancestors, night afternight, at the mouths of their caves, to scare away the ancestors of mydog. And my dog regards it with the old wonder and misgiving. Even inhis sleep he opens ever and again one eye to see that we are in nodanger. And the fire glowers and roars through its bars at him with thescorn that a wild beast must needs have for a tame one. 'You are free, 'it rages, 'and yet you do not spring at that man's throat and tear himlimb from limb and make a meal of him! 'and, gazing at me, it licks itsred lips; and I, laughing good-humouredly, rise and give the monster ashovelful of its proper food, which it leaps at and noisily devours. 

Fire is the only one of the elements that inspires awe. We breathe air, tread earth, bathe in water. Fire alone we approach with deference. Andit is the only one of the elements that is always alert, always good towatch. We do not see the air we breathe--except sometimes in London, and who shall say that the sight is pleasant? We do not see the earthrevolving; and the trees and other vegetables that are put forth by itcome up so slowly that there is no fun in watching them. One is apt tolose patience with the good earth, and to hanker after a sight of thosemultitudinous fires whereover it is, after all, but a thin andcomparatively recent crust. Water, when we get it in the form of ariver, is pleasant to watch for a minute or so, after which period theregularity of its movement becomes as tedious as stagnation. It is onlya whole seaful of water that can rival fire in variety and inloveliness. But even the spectacle of sea at its very best--say in anAtlantic storm--is less thrilling than the spectacle of one buildingablaze. And for the rest, the sea has its hours of dulness andmonotony, even when it is not wholly calm. Whereas in the grate even aquite little fire never ceases to be amusing and inspiring until youlet it out. As much fire as would correspond with a handful of earth ora tumblerful of water is yet a joy to the eyes, and a lively suggestionof grandeur. The other elements, even as presented in huge samples, impress us as less august than fire. Fire alone, according to thelegend, was brought down from Heaven: the rest were here from the dimoutset. When we call a thing earthy we impute cloddishness; by 'watery'we imply insipidness; 'airy' is for something trivial. 'Fiery' hasalways a noble significance. It denotes such things as faith, courage, genius. Earth lies heavy, and air is void, and water flows down; butflames aspire, flying back towards the heaven they came from. Theytypify for us the spirit of man, as apart from aught that is gross inhim. They are the symbol of purity, of triumph over corruption. Water, air, earth, can all harbour corruption; but where flames are, or havebeen, there is innocence. Our love of fire comes partly, doubtless, from our natural love of destruction for destruction's sake. Fire issavage, and so, even after all these centuries, are we, at heart. Ourcivilisation is but as the aforesaid crust that encloses the oldplanetary flames. To destroy is still the strongest instinct of ournature. Nature is still 'red in tooth and claw, ' though she has begunto make fine flourishes with tooth-brush and nail-scissors. Even themild dog on my hearth-rug has been known to behave like a wolf to hisown species. Scratch his master and you will find the caveman. But thescratch must be a sharp one: I am thickly veneered. Outwardly, I am asgentle as you, gentle reader. And one reason for our delight in fire isthat there is no humbug about flames: they are frankly, primaevallysavage. But this is not, I am glad to say, the sole reason. We have asense of good and evil. I do not pretend that it carries us very far. It is but the tooth-brush and nail-scissors that we flourish. Ourinnate instincts, not this acquired sense, are what the world reallyhinges on. But this acquired sense is an integral part of our minds. And we revere fire because we have come to regard it as especially thefoe of evil--as a means for destroying weeds, not flowers; a destroyerof wicked cities, not of good ones. 

The idea of hell, as inculcated in the books given to me when I was achild, never really frightened me at all. I conceived the possibilityof a hell in which were eternal flames to destroy every one who had notbeen good. But a hell whose flames were eternally impotent to destroythese people, a hell where evil was to go on writhing yet thriving forever and ever, seemed to me, even at that age, too patently absurd tobe appalling. Nor indeed do I think that to the more credulous childrenin England can the idea of eternal burning have ever been quite soforbidding as their nurses meant it to be. Credulity is but a form ofincaution. I, as I have said, never had any wish to play with fire; butmost English children are strongly attracted, and are much less afraidof fire than of the dark. Eternal darkness, with a biting east-wind, were to the English fancy a far more fearful prospect than eternalflames. The notion of these flames arose in Italy, where heat is noluxury, and shadows are lurked in, and breezes prayed for. In Englandthe sun, even at its strongest, is a weak vessel. True, we grumblewhenever its radiance is a trifle less watery than usual. But that isprecisely because we are a people whose nature the sun has notmellowed--a dour people, like all northerners, ever ready to make theworst of things. Inwardly, we love the sun, and long for it to comenearer to us, and to come more often. And it is partly because thiscraving is unsatisfied that we cower so fondly over our open hearths. Our fires are makeshifts for sunshine. Autumn after autumn, 'we see theswallows gathering in the sky, and in the osier-isle we hear theirnoise, ' and our hearts sink. Happy, selfish little birds, gathering solightly to fly whither we cannot follow you, will you not, this once, forgo the lands of your desire? 'Shall not the grief of the old timefollow?' Do winter with us, this once! We will strew all England, everymorning, with bread-crumbs for you, will you but stay and help us toplay at summer! But the delicate cruel rogues pay no heed to us, skimming sharplier than ever in pursuit of gnats, as the hour drawsnear for their long flight over gnatless seas. 

Only one swallow have I ever known to relent. It had built its nestunder the eaves of a cottage that belonged to a friend of mine, a manwho loved birds. He had a power of making birds trust him. They wouldcome at his call, circling round him, perching on his shoulders, eatingfrom his hand. One of the swallows would come too, from his nest underthe eaves. As the summer wore on, he grew quite tame. And when summerwaned, and the other swallows flew away, this one lingered, day afterday, fluttering dubiously over the threshold of the cottage. Presently, as the air grew chilly, he built a new nest for himself, under themantelpiece in my friend's study. And every morning, so soon as thefire burned brightly, he would flutter down to perch on the fender andbask in the light and warmth of the coals. But after a few weeks hebegan to ail; possibly because the study was a small one, and he couldnot get in it the exercise that he needed; more probably because of thedraughts. My friend's wife, who was very clever with her needle, madefor the swallow a little jacket of red flannel, and sought to diverthis mind by teaching him to perform a few simple tricks. For a while heseemed to regain his spirits. But presently he moped more than ever, crouching nearer than ever to the fire, and, sidelong, blinking dimweak reproaches at his disappointed master and mistress. One swallow, as the adage truly says, does not make a summer. So this one's mistresshurriedly made for him a little overcoat of sealskin, wearing which, ina muffled cage, he was personally conducted by his master straightthrough to Sicily. There he was nursed back to health, and liberated ona sunny plain. He never returned to his English home; but the nest hebuilt under the mantelpiece is still preserved in case he should comeat last. 

When the sun's rays slant down upon your grate, then the fire blanchesand blenches, cowers, crumbles, and collapses. It cannot compete withits archetype. It cannot suffice a sun-steeped swallow, or ripen aplum, or parch the carpet. Yet, in its modest way, it is to your roomwhat the sun is to the world; and where, during the greater part of theyear, would you be without it? I do not wonder that the poor, when theyhave to choose between fuel and food, choose fuel. Food nourishes thebody; but fuel, warming the body, warms the soul too. I do not wonderthat the hearth has been regarded from time immemorial as the centre, and used as the symbol, of the home. I like the social tradition thatwe must not poke a fire in a friend's drawing-room unless ourfriendship dates back full seven years. It rests evidently, thistradition, on the sentiment that a fire is a thing sacred to themembers of the household in which it burns. I dare say the fender has ameaning, as well as a use, and is as the rail round an altar. In 'TheNew Utopia' these hearths will all have been rased, of course, asdemoralising relics of an age when people went in for privacy and werenot always thinking exclusively about the State. Such heat as may beneeded to prevent us from catching colds (whereby our vitality would belowered, and our usefulness to the State impaired) will be suppliedthrough hot-water pipes (white-enamelled), the supply being strictlyregulated from the municipal water-works. Or has Mr. Wells arrangedthat the sun shall always be shining on us? I have mislaid my copy ofthe book. Anyhow, fires and hearths will have to go. Let us make themost of them while we may. 

Personally, though I appreciate the radiance of a family fire, I givepreference to a fire that burns for myself alone. And dearest of all tome is a fire that burns thus in the house of another. I find aninalienable magic in my bedroom fire when I am staying with friends;and it is at bedtime that the spell is strongest. 'Good night, ' says myhost, shaking my hand warmly on the threshold; you've everything youwant?' 'Everything, ' I assure him; 'good night. ' 'Good night. ' 'Goodnight, ' and I close my door, close my eyes, heave a long sigh, open myeyes, set down the candle, draw the armchair close to the fire (myfire), sink down, and am at peace, with nothing to mar my happinessexcept the feeling that it is too good to be true. 

At such moments I never see in my fire any likeness to a wild beast. Itroars me as gently as a sucking dove, and is as kind and cordial as myhost and hostess and the other people in the house. And yet I do nothave to say anything to it, I do not have to make myself agreeable toit. It lavishes its warmth on me, asking nothing in return. For fifteenmortal hours or so, with few and brief intervals, I have been makingmyself agreeable, saying the right thing, asking the apt question, exhibiting the proper shade of mild or acute surprise, smiling theappropriate smile or laughing just so long and just so loud as theoccasion seemed to demand. If I were naturally a brilliant and copioustalker, I suppose that to stay in another's house would be no strain onme. I should be able to impose myself on my host and hostess and theirguests without any effort, and at the end of the day retire quiteunfatigued, pleasantly flushed with the effect of my own magnetism. Alas, there is no question of my imposing myself. I can repayhospitality only by strict attention to the humble, arduous process ofmaking myself agreeable. When I go up to dress for dinner, I havealways a strong impulse to go to bed and sleep off my fatigue; and itis only by exerting all my will-power that I can array myself for thefinal labours: to wit, making myself agreeable to some man or woman fora minute or two before dinner, to two women during dinner, to men afterdinner, then again to women in the drawing-room, and then once more tomen in the smoking-room. It is a dog's life. But one has to havesuffered before one gets the full savour out of joy. And I do notgrumble at the price I have to pay for the sensation of basking, atlength, in solitude and the glow of my own fireside. 

Too tired to undress, too tired to think, I am more than content towatch the noble and ever-changing pageant of the fire. The finest partof this spectacle is surely when the flames sink, and gradually thered-gold caverns are revealed, gorgeous, mysterious, with inmostrecesses of white heat. It is often thus that my fire welcomes me whenthe long day's task is done. After I have gazed long into its depths, Iclose my eyes to rest them, opening them again, with a start, whenevera coal shifts its place, or some belated little tongue of flame spurtsforth with a hiss. .. . Vaguely I liken myself to the watchman one seesby night in London, wherever a road is up, huddled half-awake in histiny cabin of wood, with a cresset of live coal before him. .. . I havecome down in the world, and am a night-watchman, and I find the life aspleasant as I had always thought it must be, except when I let the fireout, and awake shivering. .. . Shivering I awake, in the twilight ofdawn. Ashes, white and grey, some rusty cinders, a crag or so of coal, are all that is left over from last night's splendour. Grey is the lawnbeneath my window, and little ghosts of rabbits are nibbling andhobbling there. But anon the east will be red, and, ere I wake, the skywill be blue, and the grass quite green again, and my fire will havearisen from its ashes, a cackling and comfortable phoenix. 

SEEING PEOPLE OFF

I am not good at it. To do it well seems to me one of the mostdifficult things in the world, and probably seems so to you, too. 

To see a friend off from Waterloo to Vauxhall were easy enough. But weare never called on to perform that small feat. It is only when afriend is going on a longish journey, and will be absent for a longishtime, that we turn up at the railway station. The dearer the friend, and the longer the journey, and the longer the likely absence, theearlier do we turn up, and the more lamentably do we fail. Our failureis in exact ratio to the seriousness of the occasion, and to the depthof our feeling. 

In a room, or even on a door-step, we can make the farewell quiteworthily. We can express in our faces the genuine sorrow we feel. Nordo words fail us. There is no awkwardness, no restraint, on eitherside. The thread of our intimacy has not been snapped. The leave-takingis an ideal one. Why not, then, leave the leave-taking at that? Always, departing friends implore us not to bother to come to the railwaystation next morning. Always, we are deaf to these entreaties, knowingthem to be not quite sincere. The departing friends would think it veryodd of us if we took them at their word. Besides, they really do wantto see us again. And that wish is heartily reciprocated. We duly turnup. And then, oh then, what a gulf yawns! We stretch our arms vainlyacross it. We have utterly lost touch. We have nothing at all to say. We gaze at each other as dumb animals gaze at human beings. We 'makeconversation'--and such conversation! We know that these are thefriends from whom we parted overnight. They know that we have notaltered. Yet, on the surface, everything is different; and the tensionis such that we only long for the guard to blow his whistle and put anend to the farce. 

On a cold grey morning of last week I duly turned up at Euston, to seeoff an old friend who was starting for America. 

Overnight, we had given him a farewell dinner, in which sadness waswell mingled with festivity. Years probably would elapse before hisreturn. Some of us might never see him again. Not ignoring the shadowof the future, we gaily celebrated the past. We were as thankful tohave known our guest as we were grieved to lose him; and both theseemotions were made evident. It was a perfect farewell. 

And now, here we were, stiff and self-conscious on the platform; and, framed in the window of the railway-carriage, was the face of ourfriend; but it was as the face of a stranger--a stranger anxious toplease, an appealing stranger, an awkward stranger. 'Have you goteverything?' asked one of us, breaking a silence. 'Yes, everything, 'said our friend, with a pleasant nod. 'Everything, ' he repeated, withthe emphasis of an empty brain. 'You'll be able to lunch on the train, 'said I, though this prophecy had already been made more than once. 'Ohyes, ' he said with conviction. He added that the train went straightthrough to Liverpool. This fact seemed to strike us as rather odd. Weexchanged glances. 'Doesn't it stop at Crewe?' asked one of us. 'No, 'said our friend, briefly. He seemed almost disagreeable. There was along pause. One of us, with a nod and a forced smile at the traveller, said 'Well!' The nod, the smile, and the unmeaning monosyllable, werereturned conscientiously. Another pause was broken by one of us with afit of coughing. It was an obviously assumed fit, but it served to passthe time. The bustle of the platform was unabated. There was no sign ofthe train's departure. Release--ours, and our friend's--was not yet. 

My wandering eye alighted on a rather portly middle-aged man who wastalking earnestly from the platform to a young lady at the next windowbut one to ours. His fine profile was vaguely familiar to me. The younglady was evidently American, and he was evidently English; otherwise Ishould have guessed from his impressive air that he was her father. Iwished I could hear what he was saying. I was sure he was giving thevery best advice; and the strong tenderness of his gaze was reallybeautiful. He seemed magnetic, as he poured out his final injunctions. I could feel something of his magnetism even where I stood. And themagnetism, like the profile, was vaguely familiar to me. Where had Iexperienced it?

In a flash I remembered. The man was Hubert le Ros. But how changedsince last I saw him! That was seven or eight years ago, in the Strand. He was then (as usual) out of an engagement, and borrowed half-a-crown. It seemed a privilege to lend anything to him. He was always magnetic. And why his magnetism had never made him successful on the London stagewas always a mystery to me. He was an excellent actor, and a man ofsober habit. But, like many others of his kind, Hubert le Ros (I donot, of course, give the actual name by which he was known) driftedseedily away into the provinces; and I, like every one else, ceased toremember him. 

It was strange to see him, after all these years, here on the platformof Euston, looking so prosperous and solid. It was not only the fleshthat he had put on, but also the clothes, that made him hard torecognise. In the old days, an imitation fur coat had seemed to be asintegral a part of him as were his ill-shorn lantern jaws. But now hiscostume was a model of rich and sombre moderation, drawing, notcalling, attention to itself. He looked like a banker. Any one wouldhave been proud to be seen off by him. 

'Stand back, please. ' The train was about to start, and I wavedfarewell to my friend. Le Ros did not stand back. He stood clasping inboth hands the hands of the young American. 'Stand back, sir, please!'He obeyed, but quickly darted forward again to whisper some final word. I think there were tears in her eyes. There certainly were tears in hiswhen, at length, having watched the train out of sight, he turnedround. He seemed, nevertheless, delighted to see me. He asked me whereI had been hiding all these years; and simultaneously repaid me thehalf-crown as though it had been borrowed yesterday. He linked his armin mine, and walked me slowly along the platform, saying with whatpleasure he read my dramatic criticisms every Saturday. 

I told him, in return, how much he was missed on the stage. 'Ah, yes, 'he said, 'I never act on the stage nowadays. ' He laid some emphasis onthe word 'stage, ' and I asked him where, then, he did act. 'On theplatform, ' he answered. 'You mean, ' said I, 'that you recite atconcerts?' He smiled. 'This, ' he whispered, striking his stick on theground, 'is the platform I mean. ' Had his mysterious prosperityunhinged him? He looked quite sane. I begged him to be more explicit. 

'I suppose, ' he said presently, giving me a light for the cigar whichhe had offered me, 'you have been seeing a friend off?' I assented. Heasked me what I supposed he had been doing. I said that I had watchedhim doing the same thing. 'No, ' he said gravely. 'That lady was not afriend of mine. I met her for the first time this morning, less thanhalf an hour ago, here, ' and again he struck the platform with hisstick. 

I confessed that I was bewildered. He smiled. 'You may, ' he said, 'haveheard of the Anglo-American Social Bureau?' I had not. He explained tome that of the thousands of Americans who annually pass through Englandthere are many hundreds who have no English friends. In the old daysthey used to bring letters of introduction. But the English are soinhospitable that these letters are hardly worth the paper they arewritten on. 'Thus, ' said Le Ros, 'the A. A. S. B. Supplies a long-feltwant. Americans are a sociable people, and most of them have plenty ofmoney to spend. The A. A. S. B. Supplies them with English friends. Fiftyper cent. Of the fees is paid over to the friends. The other fifty isretained by the A. A. S. B. I am not, alas, a director. If I were, Ishould be a very rich man indeed. I am only an employe'. But even so Ido very well. I am one of the seers-off. '

Again I asked for enlightenment. 'Many Americans, ' he said, 'cannotafford to keep friends in England. But they can all afford to be seenoff. The fee is only five pounds (twenty-five dollars) for a singletraveller; and eight pounds (forty dollars) for a party of two or more. They send that in to the Bureau, giving the date of their departure, and a description by which the seer-off can identify them on theplatform. And then--well, then they are seen off. '

'But is it worth it?' I exclaimed. 'Of course it is worth it, ' said LeRos. 'It prevents them from feeling "out of it. " It earns them therespect of the guard. It saves them from being despised by theirfellow-passengers--the people who are going to be on the boat. It givesthem a footing for the whole voyage. Besides, it is a great pleasure initself. You saw me seeing that young lady off. Didn't you think I didit beautifully?' 'Beautifully, ' I admitted. 'I envied you. There wasI--' 'Yes, I can imagine. There were you, shuffling from foot to foot, staring blankly at your friend, trying to make conversation. I know. That's how I used to be myself, before I studied, and went into thething professionally. I don't say I'm perfect yet. I'm still a martyrto platform fright. A railway station is the most difficult of allplaces to act in, as you have discovered for yourself. ' 'But, ' I saidwith resentment, 'I wasn't trying to act. I really felt. ' 'So did I, myboy, ' said Le Ros. 'You can't act without feeling. What's his name, theFrenchman--Diderot, yes--said you could; but what did he know about it?Didn't you see those tears in my eyes when the train started? I hadn'tforced them. I tell you I was moved. So were you, I dare say. But youcouldn't have pumped up a tear to prove it. You can't express yourfeelings. In other words, you can't act. At any rate, ' he added kindly, 'not in a railway station. ' 'Teach me!' I cried. He looked thoughtfullyat me. 'Well, ' he said at length, 'the seeing-off season is practicallyover. Yes, I'll give you a course. I have a good many pupils on handalready; but yes, ' he said, consulting an ornate note-book, 'I couldgive you an hour on Tuesdays and Fridays. '

His terms, I confess, are rather high. But I don't grudge theinvestment. 

A MEMORY OF A MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

Often I have presentiments of evil; but, never having had one of themfulfilled, I am beginning to ignore them. I find that I have alwayswalked straight, serenely imprescient, into whatever trap Fate has laidfor me. When I think of any horrible thing that has befallen me, thehorror is intensified by recollection of its suddenness. 'But a momentbefore, I had been quite happy, quite secure. A moment later--' Ishudder. Why be thus at Fate's mercy always, when with a littleordinary second sight. .. Yet no! That is the worst of a presentiment: itnever averts evil, it does but unnerve the victim. Best, after all, tohave only false presentiments like mine. Bolts that cannot be dodgedstrike us kindliest from the blue. 

And so let me be thankful that my sole emotion as I entered an emptycompartment at Holyhead was that craving for sleep which, aftermidnight, overwhelms every traveller--especially the Saxon travellerfrom tumultuous and quick-witted little Dublin. Mechanically, comfortably, as I sank into a corner, I rolled my rug round me, laid myfeet against the opposite cushions, twitched up my coat collar above myears, twitched down my cap over my eyes. 

It was not the jerk of the starting train that half awoke me, but theconsciousness that some one had flung himself into the compartment whenthe train was already in motion. I saw a small man putting something inthe rack--a large black hand-bag. Through the haze of my sleep I sawhim, vaguely resented him. He had no business to have slammed the doorlike that, no business to have jumped into a moving train, no businessto put that huge hand-bag into a rack which was 'for light baggageonly, ' and no business to be wearing, at this hour and in this place, atop-hat. These four peevish objections floated sleepily together roundmy brain. It was not till the man turned round, and I met his eye, thatI awoke fully--awoke to danger. I had never seen a murderer, but I knewthat the man who was so steadfastly peering at me now. .. I shut my eyes. I tried to think. Could I be dreaming? In books I had read of peoplepinching themselves to see whether they were really awake. But inactual life there never was any doubt on that score. The great thingwas that I should keep all my wits about me. Everything might depend onpresence of mind. Perhaps this murderer was mad. If you fix a lunaticwith your eye. .. 

Screwing up my courage, I fixed the man with my eye. I had never seensuch a horrible little eye as his. It was a sane eye, too. It radiateda cold and ruthless sanity. It belonged not to a man who would kill youwantonly, but to one who would not scruple to kill you for a purpose, and who would do the job quickly and neatly, and not be found out. Washe physically strong? Though he looked very wiry, he was little andnarrow, like his eyes. He could not overpower me by force, I thought(and instinctively I squared my shoulders against the cushions, that hemight realise the impossibility of overpowering me), but I felt he hadenough 'science' to make me less than a match for him. I tried to lookcunning and determined. I longed for a moustache like his, to hide mysomewhat amiable mouth. I was thankful I could not see his mouth--couldnot know the worst of the face that was staring at me in the lamplight. And yet what could be worse than his eyes, gleaming from the deepshadow cast by the brim of his top-hat? What deadlier than that squarejaw, with the bone so sharply delineated under the taut skin?

The train rushed on, noisily swaying through the silence of the night. I thought of the unseen series of placid landscapes that we werepassing through, of the unconscious cottagers snoring there in theirbeds, of the safe people in the next compartment to mine--to his. Notmoving a muscle, we sat there, we two, watching each other, like twohostile cats. Or rather, I thought, he watched me as a snake watches arabbit, and I, like a rabbit, could not look away. I seemed to hear myheart beating time to the train. Suddenly my heart was at a standstill, and the double beat of the train receded faintly. The man was pointingupwards. .. I shook my head. He had asked me in a low voice, whether heshould pull the hood across the lamp. 

He was standing now with his back turned towards me, pulling hishand-bag out of the rack. He had a furtive back--the back of a man who, in his day, had borne many an alias. To this day I am ashamed that Idid not spring up and pinion him, there and then. Had I possessed oneounce of physical courage, I should have done so. A coward, I let slipthe opportunity. I thought of the communication-cord, but how could Imove to it? He would be too quick for me. He would be very angry withme. I would sit quite still and wait. Every moment was a long reprieveto me now. Something might intervene to save me. There might be acollision on the line. Perhaps he was a quite harmless man. .. I caughthis eyes, and shuddered. .. 

His bag was open on his knees. His right hand was groping in it. (ThankHeaven he had not pulled the hood over the lamp!) I saw him pull outsomething--a limp thing, made of black cloth, not unlike the thingwhich a dentist places over your mouth when laughing-gas is to beadministered. 'Laughing-gas, no laughing matter'--the irrelevant andidiotic embryo of a pun dangled itself for an instant in my brain. Whatother horrible thing would come out of the bag? Perhaps some gleaminginstrument?. .. He closed the bag with a snap, laid it beside him. Hetook off his top-hat, laid that beside him. I was surprised (I know notwhy) to see that he was bald. There was a gleaming high light on hisbald, round head. The limp, black thing was a cap, which he slowlyadjusted with both hands, drawing it down over the brow and behind theears. It seemed to me as though he were, after all, hooding the lamp;in my feverish fancy the compartment grew darker when the orb of hishead was hidden. The shadow of another simile for his action camesurging up. .. He had put on the cap so gravely, so judicially. Yes, that was it: he had assumed the black cap, that decent symbol whichindemnifies the taker of a life; and might the Lord have mercy on mysoul. .. Already he was addressing me. .. What had he said? I asked himto repeat it. My voice sounded even further away than his. He repeatedthat he thought we had met before. I heard my voice saying politely, somewhere in the distance, that I thought not. He suggested that I hadbeen staying at some hotel in Colchester six years ago. My voice, drawing a little nearer to me, explained that I had never in my lifebeen at Colchester. He begged my pardon and hoped no offence would betaken where none had been meant. My voice, coming right back to its ownquarters, reassured him that of course I had taken no offence at all, adding that I myself very often mistook one face for another. Hereplied, rather inconsequently, that the world was a small place. 

Evidently he must have prepared this remark to follow my expectedadmission that I had been at that hotel in Colchester six years ago, and have thought it too striking a remark to be thrown away. Aguileless creature evidently, and not a criminal at all. Then Ireflected that most of the successful criminals succeed rather throughthe incomparable guilelessness of the police than through any devilishcunning in themselves. Besides, this man looked the very incarnation ofruthless cunning. Surely, he must but have dissembled. My suspicions ofhim resurged. But somehow, I was no longer afraid of him. Whatevercrimes he might have been committing, and be going to commit, I feltthat he meant no harm to me. After all, why should I have imaginedmyself to be in danger? Meanwhile, I would try to draw the man out, pitting my wits against his. 

I proceeded to do so. He was very voluble in a quiet way. Before long Iwas in possession of all the materials for an exhaustive biography ofhim. And the strange thing was that I could not, with the best will inthe world, believe that he was lying to me. I had never heard a mantelling so obviously the truth. And the truth about any one, howevercommonplace, must always be interesting. Indeed, it is the commonplacetruth--the truth of widest application--that is the most interesting ofall truths. 

I do not now remember many details of this man's story; I remembermerely that he was 'travelling in lace, ' that he had been born atBoulogne (this was the one strange feature of the narrative), thatsomebody had once left him L100 in a will, and that he had a littledaughter who was 'as pretty as a pink. ' But at the time I wasenthralled. Besides, I liked the man immensely. He was a kind andsimple soul, utterly belying his appearance. I wondered how I evercould have feared him and hated him. Doubtless, the reaction from myprevious state intensified the kindliness of my feelings. Anyhow, myheart went out to him. I felt that we had known each other for manyyears. While he poured out his recollections I felt that he was an oldcrony, talking over old days which were mine as well as his. Little bylittle, however, the slumber which he had scared from me came hoveringback. My eyelids drooped; my comments on his stories became few andmuffled. 'There!' he said, 'you're sleepy. I ought to have thought ofthat. ' I protested feebly. He insisted kindly. 'You go to sleep, ' hesaid, rising and drawing the hood over the lamp. It was dawn when Iawoke. Some one in a top-hat was standing over me and saying 'Euston. ''Euston?' I repeated. 'Yes, this is Euston. Good day to you. ' 'Good dayto you, ' I repeated mechanically, in the grey dawn. 

Not till I was driving through the cold empty streets did I rememberthe episode of the night, and who it was that had awoken me. I wished Icould see my friend again. It was horrible to think that perhaps Ishould never see him again. I had liked him so much, and he had seemedto like me. I should not have said that he was a happy man. There wassomething melancholy about him. I hoped he would prosper. I had aforeboding that some great calamity was in store for him, and wished Icould avert it. I thought of his little daughter who was 'as pretty asa pink. ' Perhaps Fate was going to strike him through her. Perhaps whenhe got home he would find that she was dead. There were tears in myeyes when I alighted on my doorstep. 

Thus, within a little space of time, did I experience two deepemotions, for neither of which was there any real justification. Iexperienced terror, though there was nothing to be afraid of, and Iexperienced sorrow, though there was nothing at all to be sorry about. And both my terror and my sorrow were, at the time, overwhelming. 

You have no patience with me? Examine yourselves. Examine one another. In every one of us the deepest emotions are constantly caused by someabsurdly trivial thing, or by nothing at all. Conversely, the greatthings in our lives--the true occasions for wrath, anguish, rapture, what not--very often leave us quite calm. We never can depend on anyright adjustment of emotion to circumstance. That is one of manyreasons which prevent the philosopher from taking himself and hisfellow-beings quite so seriously as he would wish. 

PORRO UNUM. .. 

By graceful custom, every newcomer to a throne in Europe pays a roundof visits to his neighbours. When King Edward came back from seeing theTsar at Reval, his subjects seemed to think that he had fulfilled thelast demand on his civility. That was in the days of Abdul Hamid. Noneof us wished the King to visit Turkey. Turkey is not internationallypowerful, nor had Abdul any Guelph blood in him; and so we were able toassert, by ignoring her and him, our humanitarianism and passion forliberty, quite safely, quite politely. Now that Abdul is deposed from'his infernal throne, ' it is taken as a matter of course that the Kingwill visit his successor. Well, let His Majesty betake himself and histact and a full cargo of Victorian Orders to Constantinople, by allmeans. But, on the way, nestling in the very heart of Europe, perfectlycivilised and strifeless, jewelled all over with freedom, is anothercountry which he has not visited since his accession--a country which, oddly enough, none but I seems to expect him to visit. Why, I ask, should Switzerland be cold-shouldered?

I admit she does not appeal to the romantic imagination. She never has, as a nation, counted for anything. Physically soaring out of sight, morally and intellectually she has lain low and said nothing. Not oneidea, not one deed, has she to her credit. All that is worth knowing ofher history can be set forth without compression in a few lines of aguide-book. Her one and only hero--William Tell--never, as we now know, existed. He has been proved to be a myth. Also, he is the one and onlymyth that Switzerland has managed to create. He exhausted her poorlittle stock of imagination. Living as pigmies among the blind excessesof Nature, living on sufferance there, animalculae, her sons have beenoverwhelmed from the outset, have had no chance whatsoever ofdevelopment. Even if they had a language of their own, they would haveno literature. Not one painter, not one musician, have they produced;only couriers, guides, waiters, and other parasites. A smug, tame, sly, dull, mercenary little race of men, they exist by and for the alientripper. They are the fine flower of commercial civilisation, theshining symbol of international comity, and have never done anybody anyharm. I cannot imagine why the King should not give them theincomparable advertisement of a visit. 

Not that they are badly in need of advertisement over here. Every yearthe British trippers to Switzerland vastly outnumber the Britishtrippers to any other land--a fact which shows how little the romanticimagination tells as against cheapness and comfort of hotels and thenotion that a heart strained by climbing is good for the health. Andthis fact does but make our Sovereign's abstention the more remarkable. Switzerland is not 'smart, ' but a King is not the figure-head merely ofhis entourage: he is the whole nation's figure-head. Switzerland, aloneamong nations, is a British institution, and King Edward ought not tosnub her. That we expect him to do so without protest from us, seems tome a rather grave symptom of flunkeyism. 

Fiercely resenting that imputation, you proceed to raise difficulties. 'Who, ' you ask, 'would there be to receive the King in the name of theSwiss nation?' I promptly answer, 'The President of the SwissRepublic. ' You did not expect that. You had quite forgotten, if indeedyou had ever heard, that there was any such person. For the life ofyou, you could not tell me his name. Well, his name is not very widelyknown even in Switzerland. A friend of mine, who was there lately, tells me that he asked one Swiss after another what was the name of thePresident, and that they all sought refuge in polite astonishment atsuch ignorance, and, when pressed for the name, could only screw uptheir eyes, snap their fingers, and feverishly declare that they had iton the tips of their tongues. This is just as it should be. In an idealrepublic there should be no one whose name might not at any moment slipthe memory of his fellows. Some sort of foreman there must be, for theState's convenience; but the more obscure he be, and the moreautomatic, the better for the ideal of equality. In the Republics ofFrance and of America the President is of an extrusive kind. His officehas been fashioned on the monarchic model, and his whole position isanomalous. He has to try to be ornamental as well as useful, a symbolas well as a pivot. Obviously, it is absurd to single out one man as asymbol of the equality of all men. And not less unreasonable is it toexpect him to be inspiring as a patriotic symbol, an incarnation of hiscountry. Only an anointed king, whose forefathers were kings too, canbe that. In France, where kings have been, no one can get up theslightest pretence of emotion for the President. If the President ismodest and unassuming, and doesn't, as did the late M. Faure, make anass of himself by behaving in a kingly manner, he is safe fromridicule: the amused smiles that follow him are not unkind. But in nocase is any one proud of him. Never does any one see France in him. InAmerica, where no kings have been, they are able to make a pretence ofenthusiasm for a President. But no real chord of national sentiment istouched by this eminent gentleman who has no past or future eminence, who has been shoved forward for a space and will anon be sent packingin favour of some other upstart. Let some princeling of a foreign Stateset foot in America, and lo! all the inhabitants are tumbling over oneanother in their desire for a glimpse of him--a desire which is thenatural and pathetic outcome of their unsatisfied inner craving for adynasty of their own. Human nature being what it is, a monarchy is thebest expedient, all the world over. But, given a republic, let thething be done thoroughly, let the appearance be well kept up, as inSwitzerland. Let the President be, as there, a furtive creature andinsignificant, not merely coming no man knows whence, nor merelypassing no man knows whither, but existing no man knows where; andexisting not even as a name--except on the tip of the tongue. Nationaldignity, as well as the republican ideal, is served better thus. Besides, it is less trying for the President. 

And yet, stronger than all my sense of what is right and proper is thedesire in me that the President of the Swiss Republic should, just foronce, be dragged forth, blinking, from his burrow in Berne (Berne isthe capital of Switzerland), into the glare of European publicity, andbe driven in a landau to the railway station, there to await the Kingof England and kiss him on either cheek when he dismounts from thetrain, while the massed orchestras of all the principal hotels play ournational anthem--and also a Swiss national anthem, hastily composed forthe occasion. I want him to entertain the King, that evening, at agreat banquet, whereat His Majesty will have the President's wife onhis right hand, and will make a brief but graceful speech in the Swisslanguage (English, French, German, and Italian, consecutively)referring to the glorious and never-to-be-forgotten name of WilliamTell (embarrassed silence), and to the vast number of his subjects whoannually visit Switzerland (loud and prolonged cheers). Next morning, let there be a review of twenty thousand waiters from all parts of thecountry, all the head-waiters receiving a modest grade of the VictorianOrder. Later in the day, let the King visit the National Gallery--ahall filled with picture post-cards of the most picturesque spots inSwitzerland; and thence let him be conducted to the principal factoryof cuckoo-clocks, and, after some of the clocks have been made tostrike, be heard remarking to the President, with a hearty laugh, thatthe sound is like that of the cuckoo. How the second day of the visitwould be filled up, I do not know; I leave that to the President'sdiscretion. Before his departure to the frontier, the King will ofcourse be made honorary manager of one of the principal hotels. 

I hope to be present in Berne during these great days in thePresident's life. But, if anything happen to keep me here, I shallcontent myself with the prospect of his visit to London. I long to seehim and his wife driving past, with the proper escort of Life Guards, under a vista of quadrilingual mottoes, bowing acknowledgments to us. Iwonder what he is like. I picture him as a small spare man, with aslightly grizzled beard, and pleasant though shifty eyes behind apince-nez. I picture him frock-coated, bowler-hatted, and evidentlynervous. His wife I cannot at all imagine. 

A CLUB IN RUINS

An antique ruin has its privileges. The longer the period of itscrumbling, the more do the owls build their nests in it, the more dothe excursionists munch in it their sandwiches. Thus, year by year, itsfame increases, till it looks back with contempt on the days when itwas a mere upright waterproof. Local guide-books pander more and moreslavishly to its pride; leader-writers in need of a pathetic metaphorare more and more frequently supplied by it. If there be any sordidquestion of clearing it away to make room for something else, thepublic outcry is positively deafening. 

Not that we are still under the sway of that peculiar cult which besetus in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. A bad poet or paintercan no longer reap the reward of genius merely by turning his attentionto ruins under moonlight. Nor does any one cause to be built in hisgarden a broken turret, for the evocation of sensibility in himself andhis guests. There used to be one such turret near the summit of CampdenHill; but that familiar imposture was rased a year or two ago, no oneprotesting. Fuit the frantic factitious sentimentalism for ruins. Onthe other hand, the sentiment for them is as strong as ever it was. Decrepit Carisbrooke and its rivals annually tighten their hold onBritannia's heart. 

I do not grudge them their success. But the very fact that they are sosuccessful inclines me to reserve my own personal sentiment rather forthose unwept, unsung ruins which so often confront me, here and there, in the streets of this aggressive metropolis. The ruins made, not byTime, but by the ruthless skill of Labour, the ruins of houses not oldenough to be sacrosanct nor new enough to keep pace with the demands ofa gasping and plethoric community--these are the ruins that move me totears. No owls flutter in them. No trippers lunch in them. In noguide-book or leading-article will you find them mentioned. Theirpathetic interiors gape to the sky and to the street, but nor gods normen hold out a hand to save them. The patterns of bedroom wall-papers, (chosen with what care, after how long discussion! only a few shortyears or months ago) stare out their obvious, piteous appeal to us formercy. And their dumb agony is echoed dumbly by the places where doorshave been--doors that lately were tapped at by respectful knuckles; orthe places where staircases have been--staircases down whose banisterslately slid little children, laughing. Exposed, humiliated, doomed, thehome throws out a hundred pleas to us. And the Pharisaic communitypasses by on the other side of the way, in fear of a falling brick. Down come the walls of the home, as quickly as pickaxes can send them. Down they crumble, piecemeal, into the foundations, and are cartedaway. Soon other walls will be rising--red-brick 'residential' walls, more in harmony with the Zeitgeist. None but I pays any heed to theruins. I am their only friend. Me they attract so irresistibly that Ihaunt the door of the hoarding that encloses them, and am frequentlymistaken for the foreman. 

A few summers ago, I was watching, with more than usual emotion, therasure of a great edifice at a corner of Hanover Square. There were tworeasons why this rasure especially affected me. I had known the edificeso well, by sight, ever since I was a small boy, and I had alwaysadmired it as a fine example of that kind of architecture which is themost suitable to London's atmosphere. Though I must have passed itthousands of times, I had never passed without an upward smile ofapproval that gaunt and sombre facade, with its long straight windows, its well-spaced columns, its long straight coping against the Londonsky. My eyes deplored that these noble and familiar things must perish. For sake of what they had sheltered, my heart deplored that they mustperish. The falling edifice had not been exactly a home. It had beeneven more than that. It had been a refuge from many homes. It had beena club. 

Certainly it had not been a particularly distinguished club. Itsdemolition could not have been stayed on the plea that Charles JamesFox had squandered his substance in its card-room, or that LordMelbourne had loved to doze on the bench in its hall. Nothing sublimehad happened in it. No sublime person had belonged to it. Personswithout the vaguest pretensions to sublimity had always, I believe, found quick and easy entrance into it. It had been a large nondescriptaffair. But (to adapt Byron) a club's a club tho' every one's in it. The ceremony of election gives it a cachet which not even the smartesthotel has. And then there is the note-paper, and there are thenewspapers, and the cigars at wholesale prices, and thenot-to-be-tipped waiters, and other blessings for mankind. If themembers of this club had but migrated to some other building, takingtheir effects and their constitution with them, the ruin would havebeen pathetic enough. But alas! the outward wreck was a symbol, aresult, of inner dissolution. Through the door of the hoarding the twopillars of the front door told a sorry tale. Pasted on either of themwas a dingy bill, bearing the sinister imprimatur of an auctioneer, andoffering (in capitals of various sizes) Bedroom Suites (Walnut andMahogany), Turkey, Indian and Wilton Pile Carpets, Two Full-sizedBilliard-Tables, a Remington Type-writer, a Double Door (Fire-Proof), and other objects not less useful and delightful. The club, then, hadgone to smash. The members had been disbanded, driven out of this Edenby the fiery sword of the Law, driven back to their homes. Sighing overthe marcescibility of human happiness, I peered between the pillarsinto the excavated and chaotic hall. The porter's hatch was stillthere, in the wall. There it was, wondering why no inquiries were madethrough it now, or, may be, why it had not been sold into bondage withthe double-door and the rest of the fixtures. A melancholy relic ofpast glories! I crossed over to the other side of the road, and passedmy eye over the whole ruin. The roof, the ceilings, most of the innerwalls, had already fallen. Little remained but the grim, familiarfacade--a thin husk. I noted (that which I had never noted before) twoiron grills in the masonry. Miserable travesties of usefulness, ventilating the open air! Through the gaping windows, against the wallof the next building, I saw in mid-air the greenish Lincrusta Walton ofwhat I guessed to have been the billiard-room--the billiard-room thathad boasted two full-sized tables. Above it ran a frieze of white andgold. It was interspersed with flat Corinthian columns. The gilding ofthe capitals was very fresh, and glittered gaily under the summersunbeams. 

And hardly a day of the next autumn and winter passed but I was drawnback to the ruin by a kind of lugubrious magnetism. The strangest thingwas that the ruin seemed to remain in practically the same state aswhen first I had come upon it: the facade still stood high. This mighthave been due to the proverbial laziness of British workmen, but I didnot think it could be. The workmen were always plying their pick-axes, with apparent gusto and assiduity, along the top of the building;bricks and plaster were always crashing down into the depths andsending up clouds of dust. I preferred to think the building reneweditself, by some magical process, every night. I preferred to think itwas prepared thus to resist its aggressors for so long a time that inthe end there would be an intervention from other powers. Perhaps fromthis site no 'residential' affair was destined to scrape the sky?Perhaps that saint to whom the club had dedicated itself wouldreappear, at length, glorious equestrian, to slay the dragons who hadinfested and desecrated his premises? I wondered whether he would thenrestore the ruins, reinstating the club, and setting it for ever on asound commercial basis, or would leave them just as they were, a fixedsignal to sensibility. 

But, when first I saw the poor facade being pick-axed, I did not 'give'it more than a fortnight. I had no feeling but of hopeless awe andpity. The workmen on the coping seemed to me ministers of inexorableOlympus, executing an Olympian decree. And the building seemed to me alive victim, a scapegoat suffering sullenly for sins it had notcommitted. To me it seemed to be flinching under every rhythmic blow ofthose well-wielded weapons, praying for the hour when sunset shouldbring it surcease from that daily ordeal. I caught myself nodding toit--a nod of sympathy, of hortation to endurance. Immediately, I wasashamed of my lapse into anthropomorphism. I told myself that my pityought to be kept for the real men who had been frequenters of thebuilding, who now were waifs. I reviewed the gaping, glassless windowsthrough which they had been wont to watch the human comedy. There theyhad stood, puffing their smoke and cracking their jests, and tearingwomen's reputations to shreds. 

Not that I, personally, have ever heard a woman's reputation torn toshreds in a club window. A constant reader of lady-novelists, I havealways been hoping for this excitement, but somehow it has never comemy way. I am beginning to suspect that it never will, and am inclinedto regard it as a figment. Such conversation as I have heard in clubshas been always of a very mild, perfunctory kind. A social club (eventhough it be a club with a definite social character) is a collectionof heterogeneous creatures, and its aim is perfect harmony andgood-fellowship. Thus any definite expression of opinion by any memberis regarded as dangerous. The ideal clubman is he who looks genial andsays nothing at all. Most Englishmen find little difficulty inconforming with this ideal. They belong to a silent race. Social clubsflourish, therefore, in England. Intelligent foreigners, seeing them, recognise their charm, and envy us them, and try to reproduce them athome. But the Continent is too loquacious. On it social clubs quicklydegenerate into bear-gardens, and the basic ideal of good-fellowshipgoes by the board. In Paris, Petersburg, Vienna, the only social clubsthat prosper are those which are devoted to games of chance--thosewhich induce silence by artificial means. Were I a foreign visitor, taking cursory glances, I should doubtless be delighted with the clubsof London. Had I the honour to be an Englishman, I should doubtlesslove them. But being a foreign resident, I am somewhat oppressed bythem. I crave in them a little freedom of speech, even though suchfreedom were their ruin. I long for their silence to be broken here andthere, even though such breakage broke them with it. It is not enoughfor me to hear a hushed exchange of mild jokes about the weather, or ofcomparisons between what the Times says and what the Standard says. Ipine for a little vivacity, a little boldness, a little variety, a fewgestures. A London club, as it is conducted, seems to me very like acatacomb. It is tolerable so long as you do not actually belong to it. But when you do belong to it, when you have outlived the fleetinggratification at having been elected, when you. .. But I ought not tohave fallen into the second person plural. You, readers, are free-bornEnglishmen. These clubs 'come natural' to you. You love them. To themyou slip eagerly from your homes. As for me, poor alien, had I been amember of the club whose demolition has been my theme, I should havegrieved for it not one whit the more bitterly. Indeed, my tears wouldhave been a trifle less salt. It was my detachment that enabled me tobe so prodigal of pity. 

The poor waifs! Long did I stand, in the sunshine of that day whenfirst I saw the ruin, wondering and distressed, ruthful, indignant thatsuch things should be. I forgot on what errand I had come out. Irecalled it. Once or twice I walked away, bent on its fulfilment. But Icould not proceed further than a few yards. I halted, looked over myshoulder, was drawn back to the spot, drawn by the crude, insistentanthem of the pick-axes. The sun slanted towards Notting Hill. Still Iloitered, spellbound. .. I was aware of some one at my side, some oneasking me a question. 'I beg your pardon?' I said. The stranger was atall man, bronzed and bearded. He repeated his question. In answer, Ipointed silently to the ruin. 'That?' he gasped. He stared vacantly. Isaw that his face had become pale under its sunburn. He looked from theruin to me. 'You're not joking with me?' he said thickly. I assured himthat I was not. I assured him that this was indeed the club to which hehad asked to be directed. 'But, ' he stammered, 'but--but--' 'You were amember?' I suggested. 'I am a member, ' he cried. 'And what's more, I'mgoing to write to the Committee. ' I suggested that there was one fatalobjection to such a course. I spoke to him calmly, soothed him withwords of reason, elicited from him, little by little, his sad story. Itappeared that he had been a member of the club for ten years, but hadnever (except once, as a guest) been inside it. He had been elected onthe very day on which (by compulsion of his father) he set sail forAustralia. He was a mere boy at the time. Bitterly he hated leaving oldEngland; nor did he ever find the life of a squatter congenial. The onething which enabled him to endure those ten years of unpleasant exilewas the knowledge that he was a member of a London club. Year by year, it was a keen pleasure to him to send his annual subscription. It kepthim in touch with civilisation, in touch with Home. He loved to knowthat when, at length, he found himself once again in the city of hisbirth he would have a firm foothold on sociability. The friends of hisyouth might die, or might forget him. But, as member of a club, hewould find substitutes for them in less than no time. Herding bullocks, all day long, on the arid plains of Central Australia, he used to keepup his spirits by thinking of that first whisky-and-soda which he wouldorder from a respectful waiter as he entered his club. All night long, wrapped in his blanket beneath the stars, he used to dream of thatdrink to come, that first symbol of an unlost grip on civilisation. .. He had arrived in London this very afternoon. Depositing his luggage atan hotel, he had come straight to his club. 'And now. .. ' He filled uphis aposiopesis with an uncouth gesture, signifying 'I may as well getback to Australia. '

I was on the point of offering to take him to my own club and give himhis first whisky-and-soda therein. But I refrained. The sight of anextant club might have maddened the man. It certainly was very hard forhim, to have belonged to a club for ten years, to have loved it sopassionately from such a distance, and then to find himself destinednever to cross its threshold. Why, after all, should he not cross itsthreshold? I asked him if he would like to. 'What, ' he growled, 'wouldbe the good?' I appealed, not in vain, to the imaginative side of hisnature. I went to the door of the hoarding, and explained matters tothe foreman; and presently, nodding to me solemnly, he passed with theforeman through the gap between the doorposts. I saw him crossing theexcavated hall, crossing it along a plank, slowly and cautiously. Hisattitude was very like Blondin's, but it had a certain tragic dignitywhich Blondin's lacked. And that was the last I saw of him. I hailed acab and drove away. What became of the poor fellow I do not know. Oftenas I returned to the ruin, and long as I loitered by it, him I neversaw again. Perhaps he really did go straight back to Australia. Orperhaps he induced the workmen to bury him alive in the foundations. His fate, whatever it was, haunts me. 

'273'

This is an age of prescriptions. Morning after morning, from theback-page of your newspaper, quick and uncostly cures for every humanill thrust themselves wildly on you. The age of miracles is not past. But I would raise no false hopes of myself. I am no thaumaturgist. Doyou awake with a sinking sensation in the stomach? Have you lost thepower of assimilating food? Are you oppressed with an indescribablelassitude? Can you no longer follow the simplest train of thought? Areyou troubled throughout the night with a hacking cough? Are you--infine, are you but a tissue of all the most painful symptoms of all themost malignant maladies ancient and modern? If so, skip this essay, andtry Somebody's Elixir. The cure that I offer is but a cure foroverwrought nerves--a substitute for the ordinary 'rest-cure. ' Nor isit absurdly cheap. Nor is it instant. It will take a week or so of yourtime. But then, the 'rest-cure' takes at least a month. The scale ofpayment for board and lodging may be, per diem, hardly lower than inthe 'rest-cure'; but you will save all but a pound or so of the veryheavy fees that you would have to pay to your doctor and your nurse (ornurses). And certainly, my cure is the more pleasant of the two. Mypatient does not have to cease from life. He is not undressed andtucked into bed and forbidden to stir hand or foot during his wholeterm. He is not forbidden to receive letters, or to read books, or tolook on any face but his nurse's (or nurses'). Nor, above all, is hecondemned to the loathsome necessity of eating so much food as to makehim dread the sight of food. Doubtless, the grim, inexorable process ofthe 'rest-cure' is very good for him who is strong enough and braveenough to bear it, and rich enough to pay for it. I address myself tothe frailer, cowardlier, needier man. Instead of ceasing from life, andentering purgatory, he need but essay a variation in life. He need butgo and stay by himself in one of those vast modern hotels which aboundalong the South and East coasts. 

You are disappointed? All simple ideas are disappointing. And all goodcures spring from simple ideas. 

The right method of treating overwrought nerves is to get the patientaway from himself--to make a new man of him; and this trick can be doneonly by switching him off from his usual environment, his usual habits. The ordinary rest-cure, by its very harshness, intensifies a man'spersonality at first, drives him miserably within himself; and only byits long duration does it gradually wear him down and build him upanew. There is no harshness in the vast hotels which I haverecommended. You may eat there as little as you like, especially if youare en pension. Letters may be forwarded to you there; though, unlessyour case is a very mild one, I would advise you not to leave youraddress at home. There are reading-rooms where you can see all thenewspapers; though I advise you to ignore them. You suffer under nosense of tyranny. And yet, no sooner have you signed your name in thevisitors' book, and had your bedroom allotted to you, than you feelthat you have surrendered yourself irrepleviably. It is not necessaryto this illusion that you should pass under an assumed name, unless youhappen to be a very eminent actor, or cricketer, or other idol of thenation, whose presence would flutter the young persons at the bureau. If your nervous breakdown be (as it more likely is) due to merelyintellectual distinction, these young persons will mete out to you nomore than the bright callous civility which they mete out impartiallyto all (but those few) who come before them. To them you will be anumber, and to yourself you will have suddenly become a number--thenumber graven on the huge brass label that depends clanking from thekey put into the hand of the summoned chambermaid. You are merely (letus say) 273. 

Up you go in the lift, realising, as for the first time, yourinsignificance in infinity, and rather proud to be even a number. Yourecognise your double on the door that has been unlocked for you. Noprisoner, clapped into his cell, could feel less personal, lessimportant. A notice on the wall, politely requesting you to leave yourkey at the bureau (as though you were strong enough or capacious enoughto carry it about with you) comes as a pleasant reminder of yourfreedom. You remember joyously that you are even free from yourself. You have begun a new life, have forgotten the old. This mantelpiece, sostrangely and brightly bare of photographs or 'knickknacks, ' is meaningin its meaninglessness. And these blank, fresh walls, that you havenever seen, and that never were seen by any one whom you know. .. Theirpattern is of poppies and mandragora, surely. Poppies and mandragoraare woven, too, on the brand-new Axminster beneath your elastic step. 'Come in!' A porter bears in your trunk, deposits it on a trestle atthe foot of the bed, unstraps it, leaves you alone with it. It seems tobe trying to remind you of something or other. You do not listen. Youlaugh as you open it. You know that if you examined these shirts youwould find them marked '273. ' Before dressing for dinner, you take ahot bath. There are patent taps, some for fresh water, others for seawater. You hesitate. Yet you know that whichever you touch will effusebut the water of Lethe, after all. You dress before your fire. Thecoals have burnt now to a lovely glow. Once and again, you eye themsuspiciously. But no, there are no faces in them. All's well. 

Sleek and fresh, you sit down to dinner in the 'Grande Salle a'Manger. ' Graven on your wine-glasses, emblazoned on your soup-plate, are the armorial bearings of the company that shelters you. The Collegeof Arms might sneer at them, be down on them, but to you they are ajoy, in their grand lack of links with history. They are a sympatheticsymbol of your own newness, your own impersonality. You glance down theendless menu. It has been composed for a community. None of yourfavourite dishes (you once had favourite dishes) appears in it, thankheaven! You will work your way through it, steadily, unquestioningly, gladly, with a communal palate. And the wine? All wines are alike here, surely. You scour the list vaguely, and order a pint of 273. Your eyeroves over the adjacent tables. 

You behold a galaxy of folk evidently born, like yourself, anew. Some, like yourself, are solitary. Others are with wives, with children--butwith new wives, new children. The associations of home have beenforgotten, even though home's actual appendages be here. The members ofthe little domestic circles are using company manners. They areactually making conversation, 'breaking the ice. ' They are new here toone another. They are new to themselves. How much newer to you! Youcannot 'place' them. That paterfamilias with the red moustache--is he asoldier, a solicitor, a stockbroker, what? You play vaguely, vainly, atthe game of attributions, while the little orchestra in yonder bower ofartificial palm-trees plays new, or seemingly new, cake-walks. Who arethey, these minstrels in the shadow? They seem not to be the RedHungarians, nor the Blue, nor the Hungarians of any other colour of thespectrum. You set them down as the Colourless Hungarians, and resumeyour study of the tables. They fascinate you, these your fellow-diners. You fascinate them, doubtless. They, doubtless, are cudgelling theirbrains to 'spot' your state in life--your past, which now has escapedyou. Next day, some of them are gone; and you miss them, almostbitterly. But others succeed them, not less detached and enigmatic thanthey. You must never speak to one of them. You must never lapse intothose casual acquaintances of the 'lounge' or the smoking-room. Nor isit hard to avoid them. No Englishman, how gregarious and garruloussoever, will dare address another Englishman in whose eye is no sparkof invitation. There must be no such spark in yours. Silence is part ofthe cure for you, and a very important part. It is mainly throughunaccustomed silence that your nerves are made trim again. Usually, youare giving out in talk all that you receive through your senses ofperception. Keep silence now. Its gold will accumulate in you atcompound interest. You will realise the joy of being full ofreflections and ideas. You will begin to hoard them proudly, like amiser. You will gloat over your own cleverness--you, who but a few dayssince, were feeling so stupid. Solitude in a crowd, silence amongchatterboxes--these are the best ministers to a mind diseased. And withthe restoration of the mind, the body will be restored too. You, whowere physically so limp and pallid, will be a ruddy Hercules now. Andwhen, at the moment of departure, you pass through the hall, shylydistributing to the servants that largesse which is so slight incomparison with what your doctor and nurse (or nurses) would havelevied on you, you will feel that you are more than fit to resume thatburden of personality whereunder you had sunk. You will be victoriouslyyourself again. 

Yet I think you will look back a little wistfully on the period of yourobliteration. People--for people are very nice, really, most ofthem--will tell you that they have missed you. You will reply that youdid not miss yourself. And you will go the more strenuously to yourwork and pleasure, so as to have the sooner an excuse for a goodriddance. 

A STUDY IN DEJECTION

Riderless the horse was, and with none to hold his bridle. But hewaited patiently, submissively, there where I saw him, at the shabbycorner of a certain shabby little street in Chelsea. 'My beautiful, mybeautiful, thou standest meekly by, ' sang Mrs. Norton of her Arabsteed, 'with thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, thy dark and fieryeye. ' Catching the eye of this other horse, I saw that such fire asmight once have blazed there had long smouldered away. Chestnut thoughhe was, he had no mettle. His chestnut coat was all dull and rough, unkempt as that of an inferior cab-horse. Of his once luxuriant manethere were but a few poor tufts now. His saddle was torn andweather-stained. The one stirrup that dangled therefrom was red withrust. 

I never saw in any creature a look of such unutterable dejection. Dejection, in the most literal sense of the word, indeed was his. Hehad been cast down. He had fallen from higher and happier things. Withhis 'arched neck, ' and with other points which not neglect norill-usage could rob of their old grace, he had kept something of hisfallen day about him. In the window of the little shop outside which hestood were things that seemed to match him--things appealing to thesense that he appealed to. A tarnished French mirror, a strip of fadedcarpet, some rows of battered, tattered books, a few cups and saucersthat had erst been riveted and erst been dusted--all these, in agallimaufry of other languid odds and ends, seen through thismud-splashed window, silently echoed the silent misery of the horse. They were remembering Zion. They had been beautiful once, andexpensive, and well cared for, and admired, and coveted. And now. .. 

They had, at least, the consolation of being indoors. Publiclaughing-stock though they were, they had a barrier of glass betweenthemselves and the irreverent world. To be warm and dry, too, wassomething. Piteous, they could yet afford to pity the horse. He wasmore ludicrously, more painfully, misplaced than they. A realblood-horse that has done his work is rightly left in the openair--turned out into some sweet meadow or paddock. It would be cruel tomake him spend his declining years inside a house, where no grass is. Is it less cruel that a fine old rocking-horse should be thrust fromthe nursery out into the open air, upon the pavement?

Perhaps some child had just given the horse a contemptuous shove inpassing. For he was rocking gently when I chanced to see him. Nor didhe cease to rock, with a slight creak upon the pavement, so long as Iwatched him. A particularly black and bitter north wind was blowinground the corner of the street. Perhaps it was this that kept the horsein motion. Boreas himself, invisible to my mortal eyes, may have beenastride the saddle, lashing the tired old horse to this futileactivity. But no, I think rather that the poor thing was rocking of hisown accord, rocking to attract my attention. He saw in me a possiblepurchaser. He wanted to show me that he was still sound in wind andlimb. Had I a small son at home? If so, here was the very mount forhim. None of your frisky, showy, first-hand young brutes, on which nofond parent ought to risk his offspring's bones; but a sound, steady-going, well-mannered old hack with never a spark of vice in him!Such was the message that I read in the glassy eye fixed on me. Thenostril of faded scarlet seemed for a moment to dilate and quiver. Atlast, at last, was some one going to inquire his price?

Once upon a time, in a far-off fashionable toy-shop, his price had beenprohibitive; and he, the central attraction behind the gleamingshop-window, had plumed himself on his expensiveness. He had been in nohurry to be bought. It had seemed to him a good thing to stand theremotionless, majestic, day after day, far beyond the reach of averagepurses, and having in his mien something of the frigid nobility of thehorses on the Parthenon frieze, with nothing at all of their unreality. A coat of real chestnut hair, glossy, glorious! From end to end of theParthenon frieze not one of the horses had that. 

From end to end of the toy-shop that exhibited him not one of thehorses was thus graced. Their flanks were mere wood, painted white, with arbitrary blotches of grey here and there. Miserable creatures! Itwas difficult to believe that they had souls. No wonder they werecheap, and 'went off, ' as the shopman said, so quickly, whilst hestayed grandly on, cynosure of eyes that dared not hope for him. Intobondage they went off, those others, and would be worked to death, doubtless, by brutal little boys. 

When, one fine day, a lady was actually not shocked by the pricedemanded for him, his pride was hurt. And when, that evening, he waspacked in brown paper and hoisted to the roof of a four-wheeler, hefaced the future fiercely. Who was this lady that her child should darebestride him? With a biblical 'ha, ha, ' he vowed that the child shouldnot stay long in saddle: he must be thrown--badly--even though it washis seventh birthday. But this wicked intention vanished while thechild danced around him in joy and wonder. Never yet had so manycompliments been showered on him. Here, surely, was more the manner ofa slave than of a master. And how lightly the child rode him, withnever a tug or a kick! And oh, how splendid it was to be flying thusthrough the air! Horses were made to be ridden; and he had never beforesavoured the true joy of life, for he had never known his own strengthand fleetness. Forward! Backward! Faster, faster! To floor! To ceiling!Regiments of leaden soldiers watched his wild career. Noah's quietsedentary beasts gaped up at him in wonderment--as tiny to him as thegaping cows in the fields are to you when you pass by in an expresstrain. This was life indeed! He remembered Katafalto--rememberedEclipse and the rest nowhere. Aye, thought he, and even thus must BlackBess have rejoiced along the road to York. And Bucephalus, skimmingunder Alexander the plains of Asia, must have had just this glorioussense of freedom. Only less so! Not Pegasus himself can have flown moreswiftly. Pegasus, at last, became a constellation in the sky. 'Someday, ' reflected the rocking-horse, when the ride was over, 'I, too, shall die; and five stars will appear on the nursery ceiling. '

Alas for the vanity of equine ambition! I wonder by what stages thispoor beast came down in the world. Did the little boy's father gobankrupt, leaving it to be sold in a 'lot' with the other toys? Or wasit merely given away, when the little boy grew up, to a poor butprocreative relation, who anon became poorer? I should like to thinkthat it had been mourned. But I fear that whatever mourning there mayhave been for it must have been long ago discarded. The creature didnot look as if it had been ridden in any recent decade. It looked as ifit had almost abandoned the hope of ever being ridden again. It was buthoping against hope now, as it stood rocking there in the bleaktwilight. Bright warm nurseries were for younger, happier horses. Stillit went on rocking, to show me that it could rock. 

The more sentimental a man is, the less is he helpful; the more loth ishe to cancel the cause of his emotion. I did not buy the horse. 

A few days later, passing that way, I wished to renew my emotion; butlo! the horse was gone. Had some finer person than I bought it?--towedit to the haven where it would be? Likelier, it had but been relegatedto some mirky recess of the shop. .. I hope it has room to rock there. 

A PATHETIC IMPOSTURE

Lord Rosebery once annoyed the Press by declaring that his idealnewspaper was one which should give its news without comment. Doubtlesshe was thinking of the commonweal. Yet a plea for no comments might bemade, with equal force, in behalf of the commentators themselves. Occupations that are injurious to the persons engaged in them ought notto be encouraged. The writing of 'leaders' and 'notes' is one of theseoccupations. The practice of it, more than of any other, depends on, and fosters hypocrisy, worst of vices. In a sense, every kind ofwriting is hypocritical. It has to be done with an air of gusto, thoughno one ever yet enjoyed the act of writing. Even a man with a specificgift for writing, with much to express, with perfect freedom in choiceof subject and manner of expression, with indefinite leisure, does notwrite with real gusto. But in him the pretence is justified: he hasenjoyed thinking out his subject, he will delight in his work when itis done. Very different is the pretence of one who writes at top-speed, on a set subject, what he thinks the editor thinks the proprietorthinks the public thinks nice. If he happen to have a talent forwriting, his work will be but the more painful, and his hypocrisy thegreater. The chances are, though, that the talent has already beensucked out of him by Journalism, that vampire. To her, too, he willhave forfeited any fervour he may have had, any learning, any gaiety. How can he, the jaded interpreter, hold any opinion, feel anyenthusiasm?--without leisure, keep his mind in cultivation?--besprightly to order, at unearthly hours in a whir-r-ring office? Toorder! Yes, sprightliness is compulsory there; so are weightiness, andfervour, and erudition. He must seem to abound in these advantages, oranother man will take his place. He must disguise himself at all costs. But disguises are not easy to make; they require time and care, whichhe cannot afford. So he must snatch up ready-made disguises--unhookthem, rather. He must know all the cant-phrases, the cant-references. There are very, very many of them, and belike it is hard to keep themall at one's finger-tips. But, at least, there is no difficulty incollecting them. Plod through the 'leaders' and 'notes' in half-a-dozenof the daily papers, and you will bag whole coveys of them. 

Most of the morning papers still devote much space to the old-fashionedkind of 'leader, ' in which the pretence is of weightiness, rather thanof fervour, sprightliness, or erudition. The effect of weightiness isobtained simply by a stupendous disproportion of language to sense. Thelongest and most emphatic words are used for the simplest and mosttrivial statements, and they are always so elaborately qualified as toleave the reader with a vague impression that a very difficult matter, which he himself cannot make head or tail of, has been dealt with in avery judicial and exemplary manner. 

A leader-writer would not, for instance, say--

Lord Rosebery has made a paradox. 

He would say:--

Lord Rosebery

 whether intentionally or otherwise, we leave our readers to decide, or, with seeming conviction, or, doubtless giving rein to the playful humour which is characteristic of him, has

 expressed a sentiment, or, taken on himself to enunciate a theory, or, made himself responsible for a dictum, which, we venture to assert, or, we have little hesitation in declaring, or, we may be pardoned for thinking, or, we may say without fear of contradiction, is

 nearly akin to or, not very far removed from

the paradoxical. 

But I will not examine further the trick of weightiness--it takes uptoo much of my space. Besides, these long 'leaders' are a meresurvival, and will soon disappear altogether. The 'notes' are thecharacteristic feature of the modern newspaper, and it is in them thatthe modern journalist displays his fervour, sprightliness, anderudition. 'Note'-writing, like chess, has certain recognised openings, e. G. :--

 There is no new thing under the sun. It is always the unexpected that happens. Nature, as we know, abhors a vacuum. The late Lord Coleridge once electrified his court by inquiring 'Who is Connie Gilchrist?'

And here are some favourite methods of conclusion:--

 A mad world, my masters! 'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true. There is much virtue in that 'if. ' But that, as Mr. Kipling would say, is another story. Si non e' vero, etc. 

or (lighter style)

We fancy we recognise here the hand of Mr. Benjamin Trovato. 

Not less inevitable are such parallelisms as:--

 Like Topsy, perhaps it 'growed. ' Like the late Lord Beaconsfield on a famous occasion, 'on the side of the angels. ' Like Brer Rabbit, 'To lie low and say nuffin. ' Like Oliver Twist, 'To ask for more. ' Like Sam Weller's knowledge of London, 'extensive and peculiar. ' Like Napoleon, a believer in 'the big battalions. '

Nor let us forget Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric laughter;quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterlyinactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damnedgood-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of thewedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in thingsevil; Hobson's choice, Frankenstein's monster, Macaulay's schoolboy, Lord Burleigh's nod, Sir Boyle Roche's bird, Mahomed's coffin, and DavyJones's locker. 

A melancholy catalogue, is it not? But it is less melancholy for youwho read it here, than for them whose existence depends on it, who drawfrom it a desperate means of seeming to accomplish what is impossible. And yet these are the men who shrank in horror from Lord Rosebery'smerciful idea. They ought to be saved despite themselves. Might not ashort Act of Parliament be passed, making all comment in dailynewspapers illegal? In a way, of course, it would be hard on thecommentators. Having lost the power of independent thought, having sunkinto a state of chronic dulness, apathy and insincerity, they couldhardly, be expected to succeed in any of the ordinary ways of life. They could not compete with their fellow-creatures; no door but wouldbe bolted if they knocked on it. What would become of them? Probablythey would have to perish in what they would call 'what the late LordGoschen would have called "splendid isolation. "' But such an end weresweeter, I suggest to them, than the life they are leading. 

THE DECLINE OF THE GRACES

Have you read The Young Lady's Book? You have had plenty of time to doso, for it was published in 1829. It was described by the two anonymousGentlewomen who compiled it as 'A Manual for Elegant Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits. ' You wonder they had nothing better to thinkof? You suspect them of having been triflers? They were not, believeme. They were careful to explain, at the outset, that the Virtues ofCharacter were what a young lady should most assiduously cultivate. They, in their day, labouring under the shadow of the eighteenthcentury, had somehow in themselves that high moral fervour which marksthe opening of the twentieth century, and is said to have come in withMr. George Bernard Shaw. But, unlike us, they were not concerned whollywith the inward and spiritual side of life. They cared for the materialsurface, too. They were learned in the frills and furbelows of things. They gave, indeed, a whole chapter to 'Embroidery. ' Another they gaveto 'Archery, ' another to 'The Aviary, ' another to 'The Escrutoire. 'Young ladies do not now keep birds, nor shoot with bow and arrow; butthey do still, in some measure, write letters; and so, for sake ofhistorical comparison, let me give you a glance at 'The Escrutoire. ' Itis not light reading. 

 'For careless scrawls ye boast of no pretence; Fair Russell wrote, as well as spoke, with sense. '

Thus is the chapter headed, with a delightful little wood engraving of'Fair Russell, ' looking pre-eminently sensible, at her desk, to preparethe reader for the imminent welter of rules for 'decorous composition. 'Not that pedantry is approved. 'Ease and simplicity, an even flow ofunlaboured diction, and an artless arrangement of obvious sentiments'is the ideal to be striven for. 'A metaphor may be used with advantage'by any young lady, but only 'if it occur naturally. ' And 'allusions areelegant, ' but only 'when introduced with ease, and when they are wellunderstood by those to whom they are addressed. ' 'An antithesis rendersa passage piquant'; but the dire results of a too-frequent indulgencein it are relentlessly set forth. Pages and pages are devoted to aminute survey of the pit-falls of punctuation. But when the young ladyof that period had skirted all these, and had observed all the manifoldrules of caligraphy that were here laid down for her, she was not, eventhen, out of the wood. Very special stress was laid on 'the use of theseal. ' Bitter scorn was poured on young ladies who misused the seal. 'It is a habit of some to thrust the wax into the flame of the candle, and the moment a morsel of it is melted, to daub it on the paper; andwhen an unsightly mass is gathered together, to pass the seal over thetongue with ridiculous haste--press it with all the strength which thesealing party possesses--and the result is, an impression which raisesa blush on her cheek. '

Well! The young ladies of that day were ever expected to exhibitsensibility, and used to blush, just as they wept or fainted, for veryslight causes. Their tears and their swoons did not necessarily betokenmuch grief or agitation; nor did a rush of colour to the cheek meannecessarily that they were overwhelmed with shame. To exhibit variousemotions in the drawing-room was one of the Elegant Exercises in whichthese young ladies were drilled thoroughly. And their habit ofsimulation was so rooted in sense of duty that it merged intosincerity. If a young lady did not swoon at the breakfast-table whenher Papa read aloud from The Times that the Duke of Wellington wassuffering from a slight chill, the chances were that she would swoonquite unaffectedly when she realised her omission. Even so, we may besure that a young lady whose cheek burned not at sight of the lettershe had sealed untidily--'unworthily' the Manual calls it--would anonbe blushing for her shamelessness. Such a thing as the blurring of thefamily crest, or as the pollution of the profile of Pallas Athene withthe smoke of the taper, was hardly, indeed, one of those 'very slightcauses' to which I have referred. The Georgian young lady was imbuedthrough and through with the sense that it was her duty to begracefully efficient in whatsoever she set her hand to. To the younglady of to-day, belike, she will seem accordingly ridiculous--seempoor-spirited, and a pettifogger. True, she set her hand to nograndiose tasks. She was not allowed to become a hospital nurse, forexample, or an actress. The young lady of to-day, when she hears inherself a 'vocation' for tending the sick, would willingly, without aninstant's preparation, assume responsibility for the lives of a wholeward at St. Thomas's. This responsibility is not, however, thrust onher. She has to submit to a long and tedious course of training beforeshe may do so much as smooth a pillow. The boards of the theatre areless jealously hedged in than those of the hospital. If our young ladyhave a wealthy father, and retain her schoolroom faculty for learningpoetry by heart, there is no power on earth to prevent her from makingher de'but, somewhere, as Juliet--if she be so inclined; and such isusually her inclination. That her voice is untrained, that she cannotscan blank-verse, that she cannot gesticulate with grace and propriety, nor move with propriety and grace across the stage, matters not alittle bit--to our young lady. 'Feeling, ' she will say, 'iseverything'; and, of course, she, at the age of eighteen, has morefeeling than Juliet, that 'flapper, ' could have had. All those otherthings--those little technical tricks--'can be picked up, ' or 'willcome. ' But no; I misrepresent our young lady. If she be conscious thatthere are such tricks to be played, she despises them. When, later, shefinds the need to learn them, she still despises them. It seems to herridiculous that one should not speak and comport oneself as artlesslyon the stage as one does off it. The notion of speaking or comportingoneself with conscious art in real life would seem to her quitemonstrous. It would puzzle her as much as her grandmother would havebeen puzzled by the contrary notion. 

Personally, I range myself on the grandmother's side. I take my standshoulder to shoulder with the Graces. On the banner that I wave isembroidered a device of prunes and prisms. 

I am no blind fanatic, however. I admit that artlessness is a charmingidea. I admit that it is sometimes charming as a reality. I applaud it(all the more heartily because it is rare) in children. But then, children, like the young of all animals whatsoever, have a naturalgrace. As a rule, they begin to show it in their third year, and tolose it in their ninth. Within that span of six years they can becharming without intention; and their so frequent failure in charm isdue to their voluntary or enforced imitation of the ways of theirelders. In Georgian and Early Victorian days the imitation was alwaysenforced. Grown-up people had good manners, and wished to see themreflected in the young. Nowadays, the imitation is always voluntary. Grown-up people have no manners at all; whereas they certainly have avery keen taste for the intrinsic charm of children. They wish childrento be perfectly natural. That is (aesthetically at least) an admirablewish. My complaint against these grown-up people is, that theythemselves, whom time has robbed of their natural grace as surely as itrobs the other animals, are content to be perfectly natural. Thiscontentment I deplore, and am keen to disturb. 

I except from my indictment any young lady who may read these words. Iwill assume that she differs from the rest of the human race, and hasnot, never had, anything to learn in the art of conversing prettily, ofentering or leaving a room or a vehicle gracefully, of writingappropriate letters, et patati et patata. I will assume that all theseaccomplishments came naturally to her. She will now be in a mood toaccept my proposition that of her contemporaries none seems to havebeen so lucky as herself. She will agree with me that other girls needtraining. She will not deny that grace in the little affairs of life isa thing which has to be learned. Some girls have a far greater aptitudefor learning it than others; but, with one exception, no girls have itin them from the outset. It is a not less complicated thing than is theart of acting, or of nursing the sick, and needs for the acquirement ofit a not less laborious preparation. 

Is it worth the trouble? Certainly the trouble is not taken. The'finishing school, ' wherein young ladies were taught to be graceful, isa thing of the past. It must have been a dismal place; but thedismalness of it--the strain of it--was the measure of itsindispensability. There I beg the question. Is grace itselfindispensable? Certainly, it has been dispensed with. It isn't reckonedwith. To sit perfectly mute 'in company, ' or to chatter on at the topof one's voice; to shriek with laughter; to fling oneself into a roomand dash oneself out of it; to collapse on chairs or sofas; to sprawlacross tables; to slam doors; to write, without punctuation, notes thatonly an expert in handwriting could read, and only an expert inmis-spelling could understand; to hustle, to bounce, to go straightahead--to be, let us say, perfectly natural in the midst of anartificial civilisation, is an ideal which the young ladies of to-dayare neither publicly nor privately discouraged from cherishing. Theword 'cherishing' implies a softness of which they are not guilty. Ihasten to substitute 'pursuing. ' If these young ladies were not in theaforesaid midst of an artificial civilisation, I should be the last todiscourage their pursuit. If they were Amazons, for example, spendingtheir lives beneath the sky, in tilth of stubborn fields, and in armedconflict with fierce men, it would be unreasonable to expect of themany sacrifice to the Graces. But they are exposed to no such hardships. They have a really very comfortable sort of life. They are not expectedto be useful. (I am writing all the time, of course, about the youngladies in the affluent classes. ) And it seems to me that they, inpayment of their debt to Fate, ought to occupy the time that is ontheir hands by becoming ornamental, and increasing the world's store ofbeauty. In a sense, certainly, they are ornamental. It is a strangefact, and an ironic, that they spend quite five times the annual amountthat was spent by their grandmothers on personal adornment. If they canafford it, well and good: let us have no sumptuary law. But plenty ofpretty dresses will not suffice. Pretty manners are needed with them, and are prettier than they. 

I had forgotten men. Every defect that I had noted in the modern youngwoman is not less notable in the modern young man. Briefly, he is aboor. If it is true that 'manners makyth man, ' one doubts whether theBritish race can be perpetuated. The young Englishman of to-day isinferior to savages and to beasts of the field in that they are eagerto show themselves in an agreeable and seductive light to the femalesof their kind, whilst he regards any such effort as beneath hisdignity. Not that he cultivates dignity in demeanour. He merelyslouches. Unlike his feminine counterpart, he lets his raiment matchhis manners. Observe him any afternoon, as he passes down Piccadilly, sullenly, with his shoulders humped, and his hat clapped to the back ofhis head, and his cigarette dangling almost vertically from his lips. It seems only appropriate that his hat is a billy-cock, and his shirt aflannel one, and that his boots are brown ones. Thus attired, he is onhis way to pay a visit of ceremony to some house at which he hasrecently dined. No; that is the sort of visit he never pays. (I mustconfess I don't myself. ) But one remembers the time when noself-respecting youth would have shown himself in Piccadilly withoutthe vesture appropriate to that august highway. Nowadays there is nocare for appearances. Comfort is the one aim. Any care for appearancesis regarded rather as a sign of effeminacy. Yet never, in any other ageof the world's history, has it been regarded so. Indeed, elaboratedressing used to be deemed by philosophers an outcome of thesex-instinct. It was supposed that men dressed themselves finely inorder to attract the admiration of women, just as peacocks spread theirplumage with a similar purpose. Nor do I jettison the old theory. Thedeclension of masculine attire in England began soon after the timewhen statistics were beginning to show the great numericalpreponderance of women over men; and is it fanciful to trace the onefact to the other? Surely not. I do not say that either sex isattracted to the other by elaborate attire. But I believe that eachsex, consciously or unconsciously, uses this elaboration for this verypurpose. Thus the over-dressed girl of to-day and the ill-dressed youthare but symbols of the balance of our population. The one is pleading, the other scorning. 'Take me!' is the message borne by the furs and thepearls and the old lace. 'I'll see about that when I've had a lookround!' is the not pretty answer conveyed by the billy-cock and theflannel shirt. 

I dare say that fine manners, like fine clothes, are one of thestratagems of sex. This theory squares at once with the modern youngman's lack of manners. But how about the modern young woman's not lessobvious lack? Well, the theory will square with that, too. The modernyoung woman's gracelessness may be due to her conviction that men likea girl to be thoroughly natural. She knows that they have a very highopinion of themselves; and what, thinks she, more natural than thatthey should esteem her in proportion to her power of reproducing thequalities that are most salient in themselves? Men, she perceives, areclumsy, and talk loud, and have no drawing-room accomplishments, andare rude; and she proceeds to model herself on them. Let us not blameher. Let us blame rather her parents or guardians, who, though theywell know that a masculine girl attracts no man, leave her to thedevices of her own inexperience. Girls ought not to be allowed, as theyare, to run wild. So soon as they have lost the natural grace ofchildhood, they should be initiated into that course of artificialtraining through which their grandmothers passed before them, and invirtue of which their grandmothers were pleasing. This will not, ofcourse, ensure husbands for them all; but it will certainly tend toincrease the number of marriages. Nor is it primarily for thatsociological reason that I plead for a return to the old system ofeducation. I plead for it, first and last, on aesthetic grounds. Letthe Graces be cultivated for their own sweet sake. 

The difficulty is how to begin. The mothers of the rising generationwere brought up in the unregenerate way. Their scraps of oral traditionwill need to be supplemented by much research. I advise them to starttheir quest by reading The Young Lady's Book. Exactly the right spiritis therein enshrined, though of the substance there is much that couldnot be well applied to our own day. That chapter on 'The Escrutoire, 'for example, belongs to a day that cannot be recalled. We can get ridof bad manners, but we cannot substitute the Sedan-chair for themotor-car; and the penny post, with telephones and telegrams, has, inour own beautiful phrase, 'come to stay, ' and has elbowed the art ofletter-writing irrevocably from among us. But notes are still written;and there is no reason why they should not be written well. Has themantle of those anonymous gentlewomen who wrote The Young Lady's Bookfallen on no one? Will no one revise that 'Manual of ElegantRecreations, Exercises, and Pursuits, ' adapting it to present needs?. .. A few hints as to Deportment in the Motor-Car; the exact Angle whereatto hold the Receiver of a Telephone, and the exact Key wherein to pitchthe Voice; the Conduct of a Cigarette. .. I see a wide and golden vista. 

WHISTLER'S WRITING

No book-lover, I. Give me an uninterrupted view of my fellow-creatures. The most tedious of them pleases me better than the best book. You see, I admit that some of them are tedious. I do not deem alien from myselfnothing that is human: I discriminate my fellow-creatures according totheir contents. And in that respect I am not more different in my wayfrom the true humanitarian than from the true bibliophile in his. Tohim the content of a book matters not at all. He loves books becausethey are books, and discriminates them only by the irrelevant standardof their rarity. A rare book is not less dear to him because it isunreadable, even as to the snob a dull duke is as good as a bright one. Indeed, why should he bother about readableness? He doesn't want toread. 'Uncut edges' for him, when he can get them; and, even when hecan't, the notion of reading a rare edition would seem to him quiteuncouth and preposterous The aforesaid snob would as soon question HisGrace about the state of His Grace's soul. I, on the other hand, whenever human company is denied me, have often a desire to read. Reading, I prefer cut edges, because a paper-knife is one of the thingsthat have the gift of invisibility whenever they are wanted; andbecause one's thumb, in prising open the pages, so often affects thetext. Many volumes have I thus mutilated, and I hope that in thesale-rooms of a sentimental posterity they may fetch higher prices thantheir duly uncut duplicates. So long as my thumb tatters merely themargin, I am quite equanimous. If I were reading a First FolioShakespeare by my fireside, and if the matchbox were ever so littlebeyond my reach, I vow I would light my cigarette with a spill madefrom the margin of whatever page I were reading. I am neat, scrupulously neat, in regard to the things I care about; but a book, asa book, is not one of these things. 

Of course, a book may happen to be in itself a beautiful object. Such abook I treat tenderly, as one would a flower. And such a book is, inits brown-papered boards, whereon gleam little gilt italics and alittle gilt butterfly, Whistler's Gentle Art of Making Enemies. Ithappens to be also a book which I have read again and again--a bookthat has often travelled with me. Yet its cover is as fresh as whenfirst, some twelve years since, it came into my possession. A flowerfreshly plucked, one would say--a brown-and-yellow flower, with alittle gilt butterfly fluttering over it. And its inner petals, itsdelicately proportioned pages, are as white and undishevelled as thoughthey never had been opened. The book lies open before me, as I write. Imust be careful of my pen's transit from inkpot to MS. 

Yet, I know, many worthy folk would like the book blotted out ofexistence. These are they who understand and love the art of painting, but neither love nor understand writing as an art. For them The GentleArt of Making Enemies is but something unworthy of a great man. Certainly, it is a thing incongruous with a great hero. And for mostpeople it is painful not to regard a great man as also a great hero;hence all the efforts to explain away the moral characteristicsdeducible from The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and to prove thatWhistler, beneath a prickly surface, was saturated through and throughwith the quintessence of the Sermon on the Mount. 

Well! hero-worship is a very good thing. It is a wholesome exercisewhich we ought all to take, now and again. Only, let us not strainourselves by overdoing it. Let us not indulge in it too constantly. Lethero-worship be reserved for heroes. And there was nothing heroic aboutWhistler, except his unfaltering devotion to his own ideals in art. Nosaint was he, and none would have been more annoyed than he bycanonisation; would he were here to play, as he would have playedincomparably, the devil's advocate! So far as he possessed theChristian virtues, his faith was in himself, his hope was for theimmortality of his own works, and his charity was for the defects inthose works. He is known to have been an affectionate son, anaffectionate husband; but, for the rest, all the tenderness in himseems to have been absorbed into his love for such things in nature aswere expressible through terms of his own art. As a man in relation tohis fellow-men, he cannot, from any purely Christian standpoint, beapplauded. He was inordinately vain and cantankerous. Enemies, as hehas wittily implied, were a necessity to his nature; and he seems tohave valued friendship (a thing never really valuable, in itself, to areally vain man) as just the needful foundation for future enmity. Quarrelling and picking quarrels, he went his way through lifeblithely. Most of these quarrels were quite trivial and tedious. In theordinary way, they would have been forgotten long ago, as the trivialand tedious details in the lives of other great men are forgotten. ButWhistler was great not merely in painting, not merely as a wit anddandy in social life. He had, also, an extraordinary talent forwriting. He was a born writer. He wrote, in his way, perfectly; and hisway was his own, and the secret of it has died with him. Thus, conducting them through the Post Office, he has conducted his squabblesto immortality. 

Immortality is a big word. I do not mean by it that so long as thisglobe shall endure, the majority of the crawlers round it will spendthe greater part of their time in reading The Gentle Art of MakingEnemies. Even the pre-eminently immortal works of Shakespeare are readvery little. The average of time devoted to them by Englishmen cannot(even though one assess Mr. Frank Harris at eight hours per diem, andMr. Sidney Lee at twenty-four) tot up to more than a small fraction ofa second in a lifetime reckoned by the Psalmist's limit. When I dubWhistler an immortal writer, I do but mean that so long as there are afew people interested in the subtler ramifications of English prose asan art-form, so long will there be a few constantly-recurring readersof The Gentle Art. 

There are in England, at this moment, a few people to whom proseappeals as an art; but none of them, I think, has yet done justice toWhistler's prose. None has taken it with the seriousness it deserves. Iam not surprised. When a man can express himself through two media, people tend to take him lightly in his use of the medium to which hedevotes the lesser time and energy, even though he use that medium notless admirably than the other, and even though they themselves careabout it more than they care about the other. Perhaps this verypreference in them creates a prejudice against the man who does notshare it, and so makes them sceptical of his power. Anyhow, if Disraelihad been unable to express himself through the medium of politicallife, Disraeli's novels would long ago have had the due which theexpert is just beginning to give them. Had Rossetti not been primarilya poet, the expert in painting would have acquired long ago his presentpenetration into the peculiar value of Rossetti's painting. Likewise, if Whistler had never painted a picture, and, even so, had written nomore than he actually did write, this essay in appreciation would havebeen forestalled again and again. As it is, I am a sort of herald. And, however loudly I shall blow my trumpet, not many people will believe mymessage. For many years to come, it will be the fashion among literarycritics to pooh-pooh Whistler, the writer, as an amateur. For Whistlerwas primarily a painter--not less than was Rossetti primarily a poet, and Disraeli a statesman. And he will not live down quicklier than theythe taunt of amateurishness in his secondary art. Nevertheless, I will, for my own pleasure, blow the trumpet. 

I grant you, Whistler was an amateur. But you do not dispose of a manby proving him to be an amateur. On the contrary, an amateur with realinnate talent may do, must do, more exquisite work than he could do ifhe were a professional. His very ignorance and tentativeness may be, must be, a means of especial grace. Not knowing 'how to do things, 'having no ready-made and ready-working apparatus, and being in constantfear of failure, he has to grope always in the recesses of his own soulfor the best way to express his soul's meaning. He has to shift forhimself, and to do his very best. Consequently, his work has a morepersonal and fresher quality, and a more exquisite 'finish, ' than thatof a professional, howsoever finely endowed. All of the much that weadmire in Walter Pater's prose comes of the lucky chance that he was anamateur, and never knew his business. Had Fate thrown him out of Oxfordupon the world, the world would have been the richer for the prose ofanother John Addington Symonds, and would have forfeited Walter Pater'sprose. In other words, we should have lost a half-crown and found ashilling. Had Fate withdrawn from Whistler his vision for form andcolour, leaving him only his taste for words and phrases and cadences, Whistler would have settled solidly down to the art of writing, andwould have mastered it, and, mastering it, have lost that especialquality which the Muse grants only to them who approach her timidly, bashfully, as suitors. 

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps Whistler would never, in any case, haveacquired the professional touch in writing. For we know that he neveracquired it in the art to which he dedicated all but the surplus of hisenergy. Compare him with the other painters of his day. He was a childin comparison with them. They, with sure science, solved roughly andreadily problems of modelling and drawing and what not that he neverdared to meddle with. It has often been said that his art was an art ofevasion. But the reason of the evasion was reverence. He kept himselfreverently at a distance. He knew how much he could not do, nor was heever confident even of the things that he could do; and these things, therefore, he did superlatively well, having to grope for the means inthe recesses of his soul. The particular quality of exquisiteness andfreshness that gives to all his work, whether on canvas or on stone oron copper, a distinction from and above any contemporary work, andmakes it dearer to our eyes and hearts, is a quality that came to himbecause he was an amateur, and that abided with him because he neverceased to be an amateur. He was a master through his lack of mastery. In the art of writing, too, he was a master through his lack ofmastery. There is an almost exact parallel between the two sides of hisgenius. Nothing could be more absurd than the general view of him as amasterly professional on the one side and a trifling amateur on theother. He was, certainly, a painter who wrote; but, by the slightestmovement of Fate's little finger, he might have been a writer whopainted, and this essay have been written not by me from my standpoint, but by some painter, eager to suggest that Whistler's painting was aquite serious thing. 

Yes, that painting and that writing are marvellously akin; and suchdifferences as you will see in them are superficial merely. I spoke ofWhistler's vanity in life, and I spoke of his timidity and reverence inart. That contradiction is itself merely superficial. Bob Acres wastimid, but he was also vain. His swagger was not an empty assumption tocloak his fears; he really did regard himself as a masterful anddare-devil fellow, except when he was actually fighting. Similarly, except when he was at his work, Whistler, doubtless, really did thinkof himself as a brilliant effortless butterfly. The pose was, doubtlessa quite sincere one, a necessary reaction of feeling. Well, in hiswriting he displays to us his vanity; whilst in his Painting we discernonly his reverence. In his writing, too, he displays hisharshness--swoops hither and thither a butterfly equipped with sharplittle beak and talons; whereas in his painting we are conscious onlyof his caressing sense of beauty. But look from the writer, as shown byhimself, to the means by which himself is shown. You will find that forwords as for colour-tones he has the same reverent care, and forphrases as for forms the same caressing sense of beauty. Fastidiousness--'daintiness, ' as he would have said--dandyishness, aswe might well say: by just that which marks him as a painter is hemarked as a writer too. His meaning was ever ferocious; but his method, how delicate and tender! The portrait of his mother, whom he loved, wasnot wrought with a more loving hand than were his portraits of Mr. Harry Quilter for The World. 

His style never falters. The silhouette of no sentence is ever blurred. Every sentence is ringing with a clear vocal cadence. There, after all, in that vocal quality, is the chief test of good writing. Writing, as ameans of expression, has to compete with talking. The talker need notrely wholly on what he says. He has the help of his mobile face andhands, and of his voice, with its various inflexions and its variablepace, whereby he may insinuate fine shades of meaning, qualifying orstrengthening at will, and clothing naked words with colour, and makingdead words live. But the writer? He can express a certain amountthrough his handwriting, if he write in a properly elastic way. But hiswriting is not printed in facsimile. It is printed in cold, mechanical, monotonous type. For his every effect he must rely wholly on the wordsthat he chooses, and on the order in which he ranges them, and on hischoice among the few hard-and-fast symbols of punctuation. He must souse those slender means that they shall express all that he himself canexpress through his voice and face and hands, or all that he would thusexpress if he were a good talker. Usually, the good talker is a deadfailure when he tries to express himself in writing. For that matter, so is the bad talker. But the bad talker has the better chance ofsuccess, inasmuch as the inexpressiveness of his voice and face andhands will have sharpened his scent for words and phrases that shall inthemselves convey such meanings as he has to express. Whistler was thatrare phenomenon, the good talker who could write as well as he talked. Read any page of The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and you will hear avoice in it, and see a face in it, and see gestures in it. And none ofthese is quite like any other known to you. It matters not that younever knew Whistler, never even set eyes on him. You see him and knowhim here. The voice drawls slowly, quickening to a kind of snap at theend of every sentence, and sometimes rising to a sudden screech oflaughter; and, all the while, the fine fierce eyes of the talker areflashing out at you, and his long nervous fingers are tracingextravagant arabesques in the air. No! you need never have seenWhistler to know what he was like. He projected through printed wordsthe clean-cut image and clear-ringing echo of himself. He was a bornwriter, achieving perfection through pains which must have beeninfinite for that we see at first sight no trace of them at all. 

Like himself, necessarily, his style was cosmopolitan and eccentric. Itcomprised Americanisms and Cockneyisms and Parisian argot, withconstant reminiscences of the authorised version of the Old Testament, and with chips off Molie're, and with shreds and tags of what-notsnatched from a hundred-and-one queer corners. It was, in fact, anAutolycine style. It was a style of the maddest motley, but of motleyso deftly cut and fitted to the figure, and worn with such an air, asto become a gracious harmony for all beholders. 

After all, what matters is not so much the vocabulary as the manner inwhich the vocabulary is used. Whistler never failed to find rightwords, and the right cadence for a dignified meaning, when dignity washis aim. 'And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palacesin the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairyland isbefore us. .. ' That is as perfect, in its dim and delicate beauty, asany of his painted 'nocturnes. ' But his aim was more often to pourridicule and contempt. And herein the weirdness of his naturalvocabulary and the patchiness of his reading were of very real value tohim. Take the opening words of his letter to Tom Taylor: 'Dead for aducat, dead! my dear Tom: and the rattle has reached me by post. Sansrancune, say you? Bah! you scream unkind threats and die badly. .. ' Andanother letter to the same unfortunate man: 'Why, my dear old Tom, Inever was serious with you, even when you were among us. Indeed, Ikilled you quite, as who should say, without seriousness, "A rat! Arat!" you know, rather cursorily. .. ' There the very lack of coherencein the style, as of a man gasping and choking with laughter, drives theinsults home with a horrible precision. Notice the technical skill inthe placing of 'you know, rather cursorily' at the end of the sentence. Whistler was full of such tricks--tricks that could never have beenplayed by him, could never have occurred to him, had he acquired theprofessional touch And not a letter in the book but has some suchlittle sharp felicity of cadence or construction. 

The letters, of course, are the best thing in the book, and the best ofthe letters are the briefest. An exquisite talent like Whistler's, whether in painting or in writing, is always at its best on a smallscale. On a large scale it strays and is distressed. Thus the 'Teno'Clock, ' from which I took that passage about the evening mist and theriverside, does not leave me with a sense of artistic satisfaction. Itlacks structure. It is not a roundly conceived whole: it is but a rowof fragments. Were it otherwise, Whistler could never have written soperfectly the little letters. For no man who can finely grasp a bigtheme can play exquisitely round a little one. 

Nor can any man who excels in scoffing at his fellows excel also intaking abstract subjects seriously. Certainly, the little letters areWhistler's passport among the elect of literature. Luckily, I can judgethem without prejudice. Whether in this or that case Whistler was inthe right or in the wrong is not a question which troubles me at all. Iread the letters simply from the literary standpoint. As controversialessays, certainly, they were often in very bad taste. An urchinscribbling insults upon somebody's garden-wall would not go furtherthan Whistler often went. Whistler's mode of controversy reminds me, inanother sense, of the writing on the wall. They who were so foolish asto oppose him really did have their souls required of them. After anencounter with him they never again were quite the same men in the eyesof their fellows. Whistler's insults always stuck--stuck and spreadround the insulted, who found themselves at length encased in them, like flies in amber. 

You may shed a tear over the flies, if you will. For myself, I amcontent to laud the amber. 

ICHABOD

It is not cast from any obvious mould of sentiment. It is not amemorial urn, nor a ruined tower, nor any of those things which he whoruns may weep over. Though not less really deplorable than they, itneeds, I am well aware, some sort of explanation to enable my reader tomourn with me. For it is merely a hat-box. 

It is nothing but that--an ordinary affair of pig-skin, with a brasslock. As I write, it stands on a table near me. It is of the kind thataccommodates two hats, one above the other. It has had many tenants, and is sun-tanned, rain-soiled, scarred and dented by collision withtrucks and what not other accessories to the moving scenes throughwhich it has been bandied. Yes! it has known the stress of manyjourneys; yet has it never (you would say, seeing it) received itsbaptism of paste: it has not one label on it. And there, indeed, is thetragedy that I shall unfold. 

For many years this hat-box had been my travelling companion, and was, but a few days since, a dear record of all the big and little journeysI had made. It was much more to me than a mere receptacle for hats. Itwas my one collection, my collection of labels. Well! last week itslock was broken. I sent it to the trunk-makers, telling them to takethe greatest care of it. It came back yesterday. The idiots, theaccursed idots! had carefully removed every label from its surface. Iwrote to them--it matters not what I said. My fury has burnt itselfout. I have reached the stage of craving general sympathy. So I havesat down to write, in the shadow of a tower which stands bleak, bare, prosaic, all the ivy of its years stripped from it; in the shadow of anurn commemorating nothing. 

I think that every one who is or ever has been a collector will pity mein this dark hour of mine. In other words, I think that nearly everyone will pity me. For few are they who have not, at some time, comeunder the spell of the collecting spirit and known the joy ofaccumulating specimens of something or other. The instinct has itscorner, surely, in every breast. Of course, hobby-horses are of manydifferent breeds; but all their riders belong to one great cavalcade, and when they know that one of their company has had his steed shotunder him, they will not ride on without a backward glance of sympathy. Lest my fall be unnoted by them, I write this essay. I want that glance. 

Do not, reader, suspect that because I am choosing my words nicely, andplaying with metaphor, and putting my commas in their proper places, mysorrow is not really and truly poignant. I write elaborately, for thatis my habit, and habits are less easily broken than hearts. I could nomore 'dash off' this my cri de coeur than I could an elegy on abroomstick I had never seen. Therefore, reader, bear with me, despitemy sable plumes and purple; and weep with me, though my prose be, likethose verses which Mr. Beamish wrote over Chloe's grave, 'of acharacter to cool emotion. ' For indeed my anguish is very real. Thecollection I had amassed so carefully, during so many years, thecollection I loved and revelled in, has been obliterated, swept away, destroyed utterly by a pair of ruthless, impious, well-meaning, idiotic, unseen hands. It cannot be restored to me. Nothing cancompensate me for it gone. It was part and parcel of my life. 

Orchids, jade, majolica, wines, mezzotints, old silver, first editions, harps, copes, hookahs, cameos, enamels, black-letter folios, scarabaei--such things are beautiful and fascinating in themselves. Railway-labels are not, I admit. For the most part, they are crudelycoloured, crudely printed, without sense of margin or spacing; in fact, quite worthless as designs. No one would be a connoisseur in them. Noone could be tempted to make a general collection of them. My owncollection of them was strictly personal: I wanted none that was not asymbol of some journey made by myself, even as the hunter of big gamecares not to possess the tusks, and the hunter of women covets not thephotographs, of other people's victims. My collection was one of thosewhich result from man's tendency to preserve some obvious record of hispleasures--the points he has scored in the game. To Nimrod, his tusks;to Lothario, his photographs; to me (who cut no dash in either of thoseveneries, and am not greedy enough to preserve menus nor silly enoughto preserve press-cuttings, but do delight in travelling from place toplace), my railway-labels. Had nomady been my business, had I been acommercial traveller or a King's Messenger, such labels would have heldfor me no charming significance. But I am only by instinct a nomad. Ihave a tether, known as the four-mile radius. To slip it is for mealways an event, an excitement. To come to a new place, to awaken in astrange bed, to be among strangers! To have dispelled, as by suddenmagic, the old environment! It is on the scoring of such points asthese that I preen myself, and my memory is always ringing the'changes' I have had, complacently, as a man jingles silver in hispocket. The noise of a great terminus is no jar to me. It is music. Iprick up my ears to it, and paw the platform. Dear to me as thebugle-note to any war-horse, as the first twittering of the birds inthe hedgerows to the light-sleeping vagabond, that cry of 'Take yourseats please!' or--better still--'En voiture!' or 'Partenza!' Had I theknack of rhyme, I would write a sonnet-sequence of the journey toNewhaven or Dover--a sonnet for every station one does not stop at. Iawait that poet who shall worthily celebrate the iron road. There isone who describes, with accuracy and gusto, the insides of engines; buthe will not do at all. I look for another, who shall show us the heartof the passenger, the exhilaration of travelling by day, theexhilaration and romance and self-importance of travelling by night. 

'Paris!' How it thrills me when, on a night in spring, in the hustleand glare of Victoria, that label is slapped upon my hat-box! Here, standing in the very heart of London, I am by one sweep of apaste-brush transported instantly into that white-grey city across thesea. To all intents and purposes I am in Paris already. Strange, thatthe porter does not say, 'V'la', M'sieu'!' Strange, that the eveningpapers I buy at the bookstall are printed in the English language. Strange, that London still holds my body, when a corduroyed magicianhas whisked my soul verily into Paris. The engine is hissing as I hurrymy body along the platform, eager to reunite it with my soul. .. Overthe windy quay the stars are shining as I pass down the gangway, hat-box in hand. They twinkle brightly over the deck I am nowpacing--amused, may be, at my excitement. The machinery grunts andcreaks. The little boat quakes in the excruciating throes of itsdeparture. At last!. .. One by one, the stars take their last look atme, and the sky grows pale, and the sea blanches mysteriously with it. Through the delicate cold air of the dawn, across the grey waves of thesea, the outlines of Dieppe grow and grow. The quay is lined with itsblue-bloused throng. These porters are as excited by us as though theywere the aborigines of some unknown island. (And yet, are they nothere, at this hour, in these circumstances, every day of their lives?)These gestures! These voices, hoarse with passion! The dear music ofFrench, rippling up clear for me through all this hoarse confusion ofits utterance, and making me happy!. .. I drink my cup of steamingcoffee--true coffee!--and devour more than one roll. At the tablesaround me, pale and dishevelled from the night, sit the people whom Isaw--years ago!--at Charing Cross. How they have changed! The coffeesends a glow throughout my body. I am fulfilled with a sense ofmaterial well-being. The queer ethereal exaltation of the dawn hasvanished. I climb up into the train, and dispose myself in thedun-cushioned coupe'. 'Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest' is perforated on thewhite antimacassars. Familiar and strange inscription! I murmur itsimpressive iambs over and over again. They become the refrain to whichthe train vibrates on its way. I smoke cigarettes, a little drowsilygazing out of the window at the undulating French scenery that fliespast me, at the silver poplars. Row after slanted row of theseincomparably gracious trees flies past me, their foliage shimmering inthe unawoken landscape Soon I shall be rattling over the cobbles ofunawoken Paris, through the wide white-grey streets with their unopenedjalousies. And when, later, I awake in the unnatural little bedroom ofwalnut-wood and crimson velvet, in the bed whose curtains are whitewith that whiteness which Paris alone can give to linen, a Parisian sunwill be glittering for me in a Parisian sky. 

Yes! In my whole collection the Paris specimens were dearest to me, meant most to me, I think. But there was none that had not sometendrils on sentiment. All of them I prized, more or less. Of theAberdeen specimens I was immensely fond. Who can resist the thought ofthat express by which, night after night, England is torn up itscentre? I love well that cab-drive in the chill autumnal night throughthe desert of Bloomsbury, the dead leaves rustling round the horse'shoofs as we gallop through the Squares. Ah, I shall be across theBorder before these doorsteps are cleaned, before the coming of themilk-carts. Anon, I descry the cavernous open jaws of Euston. Themonster swallows me, and soon I am being digested into Scotland. I sitensconced in a corner of a compartment. The collar of my ulster isabove my ears, my cap is pulled over my eyes, my feet are on ahot-water tin, and my rug snugly envelops most of me. Sleeping-cars arefor the strange beings who love not the act of travelling. Them Ishould spurn even if I could not sleep a wink in an ordinarycompartment. I would liefer forfeit sleep than the consciousness oftravelling. But it happens that I, in an ordinary compartment, am blestboth with the sleep and with the consciousness, all through the longnight. To be asleep and to know that you are sleeping, and to know, too, that even as you sleep you are being borne away through darknessinto distance--that, surely, is to go two better than Endymion. Surely, nothing is more mysteriously delightful than this joint consciousnessof sleep and movement. Pitiable they to whom it is denied. All throughthe night the vibration of the train keeps one-third of me awake, whilethe other two parts of me profoundly slumber. Whenever the train stops, and the vibration ceases, then the one-third of me falls asleep, andthe other two parts stir. I am awake just enough to hear thehollow-echoing cry of 'Crewe' or 'York, ' and to blink up at thegreen-hooded lamp in the ceiling. May be, I raise a corner of theblind, and see through the steam-dim window the mysterious, emptystation. A solitary porter shuffles along the platform. Yonder, thoseare the lights of the refreshment room, where, all night long, abarmaid is keeping her lonely vigil over the beer-handles and theBath-buns in glass cases. I see long rows of glimmering milk-cans, andwonder drowsily whether they contain forty modern thieves. The enginesnorts angrily in the benighted silence. Far away is the faint, familiar sound--clink-clank, clink-clank--of the man who tests thecouplings. Nearer and nearer the sound comes. It passes, recedes It israther melancholy. .. . A whistle, a jerk, and the two waking parts of meare asleep again, while the third wakes up to mount guard over them, and keeps me deliciously aware of the rhythmic dream they are dreamingabout the hot bath and the clean linen, and the lovely breakfast that Iam to have at Aberdeen; and of the Scotch air, crisp and keen, that isto escort me, later along the Deeside. 

Little journeys, as along the Deeside, have a charm of their own. Little journeys from London to places up the river, or to places on thecoast of Kent--journeys so brief that you lunch at one end and have teaat the other--I love them all, and loved the labels that recalled themto me. But the labels of long journeys, of course, took precedence inmy heart. Here and there on my hat-box were labels that recalled to melong journeys in which frontiers were crossed at dead of night--dimmemories of small, crazy stations where I shivered half-awake, and wassleepily conscious of a strange tongue and strange uniforms, of myjingling bunch of keys, of ruthless arms diving into the nethermostrecesses of my trunks, of suspicious grunts and glances, and ofgrudging hieroglyphics chalked on the slammed lids. These were thingsmore or less painful and resented in the moment of experience, yet eventhen fraught with a delicious glamour. I suffered, but gladly. In thenight, when all things are mysteriously magnified, I have never crosseda frontier without feeling some of the pride of conquest. And, indeed, were these conquests mere illusions? Was I not actually extending thefrontiers of my mind, adding new territories to it? Every crossedfrontier, every crossed sea, meant for me a definite success--anexpansion and enrichment of my soul. When, after seven days and nightsof sea traversed, I caught my first glimpse of Sandy Hook, was there nocomparison between Columbus and myself? To see what one has not seenbefore, is not that almost as good as to see what no one has ever seen?

Romance, exhilaration, self-importance these are what my labelssymbolised and recalled to me. That lost collection was a runningrecord of all my happiest hours; a focus, a monument, a diary. It wasmy humble Odyssey, wrought in coloured paper on pig-skin, and the onework I never, never was weary of. If the distinguished Ithacan hadtravelled with a hat-box, how finely and minutely Homer would havedescribed it--its depth and girth, its cunningly fashioned lock andfair lining withal! And in how interminable a torrent of hexameterswould he have catalogued all the labels on it, including thoseattractive views of the Hotel Circe, the Hotel Calypso, and otherhigh-class resorts. Yet no! Had such a hat-box existed and had it beenpreserved in his day, Homer would have seen in it a sufficient record, a better record than even he could make, of Odysseus' wanderings. Weshould have had nothing from him but the Iliad. I, certainly never feltany need of commemorating my journeys till my labels were lost to me. And I am conscious how poor and chill is the substitute. 

My collection like most collections, began imperceptibly. A man doesnot say to himself, 'I am going to collect' this thing or that. True, the schoolboy says so; but his are not, in the true sense of the word, collections. He seeks no set autobiographic symbols, for boys neverlook back--there is too little to look back on, too much in front. Norhave the objects of his collection any intrinsic charm for him. Hestarts a collection merely that he may have a plausible excuse fordoing something he ought not to do. He goes in for birds' eggs merelythat he may be allowed to risk his bones and tear his clothes inclimbing; for butterflies, that he may be encouraged to poison andimpale; for stamps. .. Really, I do not know why he, why any sanecreature goes in for stamps. It follows that he has no real love of hiscollection and soon abandons it for something else. The sincerecollector, how different! His hobby has a solid basis of personalpreference. Some one gives him (say) a piece of jade. He admires it. Hesees another piece in a shop, and buys it; later, he buys another. Hedoes not regard these pieces of jade as distinct from the rest of hispossessions; he has no idea of collecting jade. It is not till he hasacquired several other pieces that he ceases to regard them as mereitems in the decoration of his room, and gives them a little table, ora tray of a cabinet, all to themselves. How well they look there! Howthey intensify one another! He really must get some one to give himthat little pedestalled Cupid which he saw yesterday in Wardour Street. Thus awakes in him, quite gradually, the spirit of the collector. Ortake the case of one whose collection is not of beautiful things, butof autobiographic symbols: take the case of the glutton. He will havepocketed many menus before it occurs to him to arrange them in analbum. Even so, it was not until a fair number of labels had beenpasted on my hat-box that I saw them as souvenirs, and determined thatin future my hat-box should always travel with me and so commemorate myevery darling escape. 

In the path of every collector are strewn obstacles of one kind oranother; which, to overleap, is part of the fun. As a collector oflabels I had my pleasant difficulties. On any much-belabelled piece ofbaggage the porter always pastes the new label over that which looksmost recent; else the thing might miss its destination. Now, pastedries before the end of the briefest journey; and one of my canons wasthat, though two labels might overlap, none must efface the inscriptionof another. On the other hand, I did not wish to lose my hat-box, forthis would have entailed inquiries, and descriptions, and telegraphingup the line, and all manner of agitation. What, then, was I to do? Imight have taken my hat-box with me in the carriage? That, indeed, iswhat I always did. But, unless a thing is to go in the van, it receivesno label at all. So I had to use a mild stratagem. 'Yes, ' I would say, 'everything in the van!' The labels would be duly affixed. 'Oh, ' Iwould cry, seizing the hat-box quickly, 'I forgot. I want this with mein the carriage. ' (I learned to seize it quickly, because some portersare such martinets that they will whisk the label off and confiscateit. ) Then, when the man was not looking, I would remove the label fromthe place he had chosen for it and press it on some unoccupied part ofthe surface. You cannot think how much I enjoyed these manoeuvres. There was the moral pleasure of having both outwitted a railway companyand secured another specimen for my collection; and there was thephysical pleasure of making a limp slip of paper stick to a hardsubstance--that simple pleasure which appeals to all of us and is, perhaps, the missing explanation of philately. Pressed for time, Icould not, of course, have played my trick. Nor could I have doneso--it would have seemed heartless--if any one had come to see me offand be agitated at parting. Therefore, I was always very careful toarrive in good time for my train, and to insist that all farewellsshould be made on my own doorstep. 

Only in one case did I break the rule that no label must be obliteratedby another. It is a long story; but I propose to tell it. You must knowthat I loved my labels not only for the meanings they conveyed to me, but also, more than a little, for the effect they produced on otherpeople. Travelling in a compartment, with my hat-box beside me, Ienjoyed the silent interest which my labels aroused in myfellow-passengers. If the compartment was so full that my hat-box hadto be relegated to the rack, I would always, in the course of thejourney, take it down and unlock it, and pretend to be looking forsomething I had put into it. It pleased me to see from beneath myeyelids the respectful wonder and envy evoked by it. Of course, therewas no suspicion that the labels were a carefully formed collection;they were taken as the wild-flowers of an exquisite restlessness, of anunrestricted range in life. Many of them signified beautiful or famousplaces. There was one point at which Oxford, Newmarket, and Assisiconverged, and I was always careful to shift my hat-box round in such away that this purple patch should be lost on none of myfellow-passengers. The many other labels, English or alien, they, too, gave their hints of a life spent in fastidious freedom, hints that Ihad seen and was seeing all that is best to be seen of men and citiesand country-houses. I was respected, accordingly, and envied. And I hadkeen delight in this ill-gotten homage. A despicable delight, you say?But is not yours, too, a fallen nature? The love of impressingstrangers falsely, is it not implanted in all of us? To be sure, it isan inevitable outcome of the conditions in which we exist. It is aresult of the struggle for life. Happiness, as you know, is our aim inlife; we are all struggling to be happy. And, alas! for every one ofus, it is the things he does not possess which seem to him mostdesirable, most conducive to happiness. For instance, the poor noblemancovets wealth, because wealth would bring him comfort, whereas thenouveau riche covets a pedigree, because a pedigree would make him ofwhat he is merely in. The rich nobleman who is an invalid covetshealth, on the assumption that health would enable him to enjoy hiswealth and position. The rich, robust nobleman hankers after anintellect. The rich, robust, intellectual nobleman is (be sure of it)as discontented, somehow, as the rest of them. No man possesses all hewants. No man is ever quite happy. But, by producing an impression thathe has what he wants--in fact, by 'bluffing'--a man can gain some ofthe advantages that he would gain by really having it. Thus, the poornobleman can, by concealing his 'balance' and keeping up appearances, coax more or less unlimited credit from his tradesman. The nouveauriche, by concealing his origin and trafficking with the College ofHeralds, can intercept some of the homage paid to high birth. And(though the rich nobleman who is an invalid can make no tangible gainby pretending to be robust, since robustness is an advantage only fromwithin) the rich, robust nobleman can, by employing a clever privatesecretary to write public speeches and magazine articles for him, intercept some of the homage which is paid to intellect. 

These are but a few typical cases, taken at random from a small area. But consider the human race at large, and you will find that 'bluffing'is indeed one of the natural functions of the human animal. Every manpretends to have what (not having it) he covets, in order that he maygain some of the advantages of having it. And thus it comes that hemakes his pretence, also, by force of habit, when there is nothingtangible to be gained by it. The poor nobleman wishes to be thoughtrich even by people who will not benefit him in their delusion; and thenouveau riche likes to be thought well-born even by people who set nostore on good birth; and so forth. But pretences, whether they be anend or a means, cannot be made successfully among our intimate friends. These wretches know all about us--have seen through us long ago. Withthem we are, accordingly, quite natural. That is why we find theircompany so restful. Among acquaintances the pretence is worth making. But those who know anything at all about us are apt to find us out. That is why we find acquaintances such a nuisance. Among perfectstrangers, who know nothing at all about us, we start with a cleanslate. If our pretence do not come off, we have only ourselves toblame. And so we 'bluff' these strangers, blithely, for all we areworth, whether there be anything to gain or nothing. We all do it. Letus despise ourselves for doing it, but not one another. By which Imean, reader, do not be hard on me for making a show of my labels inrailway-carriages. After all, the question is whether a man 'bluff'well or ill. If he brag vulgarly before his strangers, away with him!by all means. He does not know how to play the game. He is a failure. But, if he convey subtly (and, therefore, successfully) the fineimpression he wishes to convey, then you should stifle your wrath, andtry to pick up a few hints. When I saw my fellow-passengers eyeing myhat-box, I did not, of course, say aloud to them, 'Yes, mine is adelightful life! Any amount of money, any amount of leisure! And, what's more, I know how to make the best use of them both!' Had I doneso, they would have immediately seen through me as an impostor. But Idid nothing of the sort. I let my labels proclaim distinction for me, quietly, in their own way. And they made their proclamation withimmense success. But there came among them, in course of time, onelabel that would not harmonise with them. Came, at length, one labelthat did me actual discredit. I happened to have had influenza, and mydoctor had ordered me to make my convalescence in a place which, according to him, was better than any other for my particularcondition. He had ordered me to Ramsgate, and to Ramsgate I had gone. Alabel on my hat-box duly testified to my obedience. At the time, I hadthought nothing of it. But, in subsequent journeys, I noticed that myhat-box did not make its old effect, somehow. My fellow-passengerslooked at it, were interested in it; but I had a subtle sense that theywere not reverencing me as of yore. Something was the matter. I was notlong in tracing what it was. The discord struck by Ramsgate was themore disastrous because, in my heedlessness, I had placed that ignoblelabel within an inch of my point d'appui--the trinity of Oxford, Newmarket and Assisi. What was I to do? I could not explain to myfellow-passengers, as I have explained to you, my reason for Ramsgate. So long as the label was there, I had to rest under the hideoussuspicion of having gone there for pleasure, gone of my own free will. I did rest under it during the next two or three journeys. But theinjustice of my position maddened me. At length, a too obvious sneer onthe face of a fellow-passenger steeled me to a resolve that I would, for once, break my rule against obliteration. On the return journey, Iobliterated Ramsgate with the new label, leaving visible merely thefinal TE, which could hardly compromise me. 

Steterunt those two letters because I was loth to destroy what was, primarily, a symbol for myself: I wished to remember Ramsgate, eventhough I had to keep it secret. Only in a secondary, accidental way wasmy collection meant for the public eye. Else, I should not havehesitated to deck the hat-box with procured symbols of Seville, Simla, St. Petersburg and other places which I had not (and would have likedto be supposed to have) visited. But my collection was, first of all, aprivate autobiography, a record of my scores of Fate; and thuspositively to falsify it would have been for me as impossible ascheating at 'Patience. ' From that to which I would not add I hated tosubtract anything--even Ramsgate. After all, Ramsgate was not London;to have been in it was a kind of score. Besides, it had restored me tohealth. I had no right to rase it utterly. 

But such tendresse was not my sole reason for sparing those twoletters. Already I was reaching that stage where the collector loveshis specimens not for their single sakes, but as units in thesum-total. To every collector comes, at last, a time when he does butvalue his collection--how shall I say?--collectively. He who goes infor beautiful things begins, at last, to value his every acquisitionnot for its beauty, but because it enhances the worth of the rest. Likewise, he who goes in for autobiographic symbols begins, at last, tocare not for the symbolism of another event in his life, but for theaddition to the objects already there. He begins to value every eventless for its own sake than because it swells his collection. Thus therecame for me a time when I looked forward to a journey less because itmeant movement and change for myself than because it meant anotherlabel for my hat-box. A strange state to fall into? Yes, collecting isa mania, a form of madness. And it is the most pleasant form of madnessin the whole world. It can bring us nearer to real happiness than canany form of sanity. The normal, eclectic man is never happy, because heis always craving something of another kind than what he has got. Thecollector, in his mad concentration, wants only more and more of whathe has got already; and what he has got already he cherishes with apassionate joy. I cherished my gallimaufry of rainbow-coloured labelsalmost as passionately as the miser his hoard of gold. Why do we callthe collector of current coin a miser? Wretched? He? True, he denieshimself all the reputed pleasures of life; but does he not do so of hisown accord, gladly? He sacrifices everything to his mania; but thatmerely proves how intense his mania is. In that the nature of hiscollection cuts him off from all else, he is the perfect type of thecollector. He is above all other collectors. And he is the trulyhappiest of them all. It is only when, by some merciless stroke ofFate, he is robbed of his hoard, that he becomes wretched. Then, certainly, he suffers. He suffers proportionately to his joy. He issmitten with sorrow more awful than any sorrow to be conceived by thesane. I whose rainbow-coloured hoard has been swept from me, seem totaste the full savour of his anguish. 

I sit here thinking of the misers who, in life or in fiction, have beendespoiled. Three only do I remember: Melanippus of Sicyon, PierreBaudouin of Limoux, Silas Marner. Melanippus died of a broken heart. Pierre Baudouin hanged himself. The case of Silas Marner is morecheerful. He, coming into his cottage one night, saw by the dim lightof the hearth, that which seemed to be his gold restored, but wasreally nothing but the golden curls of a little child, whom he wasdestined to rear under his own roof, finding in her more than solacefor his bereavement. But then, he was a character in fiction: the othertwo really existed. What happened to him will not happen to me. Even iflittle children with rainbow-coloured hair were so common that one ofthem might possibly be left on my hearth-rug, I know well that I shouldnot feel recompensed by it, even if it grew up to be as fascinating aparagon as Eppie herself. Had Silas Marner really existed (nay! evenhad George Eliot created him in her maturity) neither would he havefelt recompensed. Far likelier, he would have been turned to stone, inthe first instance, as was poor Niobe when the divine arrows destroyedthat unique collection on which she had lavished so many years. Or, maybe, had he been a very strong man, he would have found a bitter joy insaving up for a new hoard. Like Carlyle, when the MS. Of hismasterpiece was burned by the housemaid of John Stuart Mill, he mighthave begun all over again, and builded a still nobler monument on thetragic ashes. 

That is a fine, heartening example! I will be strong enough to followit. I will forget all else. I will begin all over again. There standsmy hat-box! Its glory is departed, but I vow that a greater gloryawaits it. Bleak, bare and prosaic it is now, but--ten years hence! Itscareer, like that of the Imperial statesman in the moment of hisdownfall, 'is only just beginning. '

There is a true Anglo-Saxon ring in this conclusion. May it appeasewhomever my tears have been making angry. 

GENERAL ELECTIONS

I admire detachment. I commend a serene indifference to hubbub. I likeArchimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Balzac, Darwin, and other sages, for having been so concentrated on this or that eternal verity in artor science or philosophy, that they paid no heed to alarums andexcursions which were sweeping all other folk off their feet. It iswith some shame that I haunt the tape-machine whenever a GeneralElection is going on. 

Of politics I know nothing. My mind is quite open on the subject offiscal reform, and quite empty; and the void is not an aching one: Ihave no desire to fill it. The idea of the British Empire leaves mequite cold. If this or that subject race threw off our yoke, I shouldfeel less vexation than if one comma were misplaced in the printing ofthis essay. The only feeling that our Colonies inspire in me is adetermination not to visit them. Socialism neither affrights norattracts me--or, rather, it has both these effects equally. When Ithink of poverty and misery crushing the greater part of humanity, andmost of all when I hear of some specific case of distress, I become asocialist indeed. But I am not less an artist than a human being, andwhen I think of Demos, that chin-bearded god, flushed with victory, crowned with leaflets of the Social Democratic League, quaffingtemperance beverages in a world all drab; when I think of modellodging-houses in St. James's Park, and trams running round and roundSt. James's Square--the mighty fallen, and the lowly swollen, and, inElysium, the shade of Matthew Arnold shedding tears on the shoulder ofa shade so different as George Brummell's--tears, idle tears, at sightof the Barbarians, whom he had mocked and loved, now annihilated bythose others whom he had mocked and hated; when such previsions asthese come surging up in me, I do deem myself well content with thepresent state of things, dishonourable though it is. As to socialism, then, you see, my mind is evenly divided. It is with no political biasthat I go and hover around the tape-machine. My interest in GeneralElections is a merely 'sporting' interest. I do not mean that I laybets. A bad fairy decreed over my cradle that I should lose every betthat I might make; and, in course of time, I abandoned a practice whichtook away from coming events the pleasing element of uncertainty. 'Amerely dramatic interest' is less equivocal, and more accurate. 

'This, ' you say, 'is rank incivism. ' I assume readily that you are anardent believer in one political party or another, and that, havingstudied thoroughly all the questions at issue, you could give cogentreasons for all the burning faith that is in you. But how about yourfriends and acquaintances? How many of them can cope with you indiscussion? How many of them show even a desire to cope with you?Travel, I beg you, on the Underground Railway, or in a Tube. Suchplaces are supposed to engender in their passengers a taste forpolitical controversy. Yet how very elementary are such arguments asyou will hear there! It is obvious that these gentlemen know and carevery little about 'burning questions. ' What they do know and care aboutis the purely personal side of politics. They have their likes andtheir dislikes for a few picturesque and outstanding figures. Thesethey will attack or defend with fervour. But you will be lucky if youoverhear any serious discussion of policy. Emerge from the netherworld. Range over the whole community--from the costermonger who says'Good Old Winston!' to the fashionable woman who says 'I do think Mr. Balfour is rather wonderful!'--and you will find the same plentifullack of interest in the impersonal side of polities. You will find thatalmost every one is interested in politics only as a personal conflictbetween certain interesting men--as a drama, in fact. Frown not, then, on me alone. 

Whenever a General Election occurs, the conflict becomes sharper andmore obvious--the play more exciting--the audience more tense. Thestage is crowded with supernumeraries, not interesting in themselves, but adding a new interest to the merely personal interest. There is thestronger 'side, ' here the weaker, ranged against each other. Which willbe vanquished? It rests with the audience to decide. And, as humannature is human nature, of course the audience decides that the weakerside shall be victorious. That is what politicians call 'the swing ofthe pendulum. ' They believe that the country is alienated by theblunders of the Government, and is disappointed by the unfulfilment ofpromises, and is anxious for other methods of policy. Bless them! thecountry hardly noticed their blunders, has quite forgotten theirpromises, and cannot distinguish between one set of methods andanother. When the man in the street sees two other men in the streetfighting, he doesn't care to know the cause of the combat: he simplywants the smaller man to punish the bigger, and to punish him with allpossible severity. When a party with a large majority appeals to thecountry, its appeal falls, necessarily, on deaf ears. Some years agothere happened an exception to this rule. But then the circumstanceswere exceptional. A small nation was fighting a big nation, and, as thebig nation happened to be yourselves, your sympathy was transferred tothe big nation. As the little party was suspected of favouring thelittle nation, your sympathy was transferred likewise to the big party. Barring 'khaki, ' sympathy takes its usual course in General Elections. The bigger the initial majority, the bigger the collapse. It is notenough that Goliath shall fall: he must bite the dust, and bite plentyof it. It is not enough that David shall have done what he set out todo: a throne must be found for this young man. Away with the giant'sbody! Hail, King David!

I should like to think that chivalry was the sole motive of our zeal. Iam afraid that the mere craving for excitement has something to do withit. Pelion has never been piled on Ossa; and no really useful purposecould be served by the superimposition. But we should like to see thething done. It would appeal to our sense of the grandiose--ourhankering after the unlimited. When the man of science shows us a dropof water in a test-tube, and tells us that this tiny drop contains morethan fifteen billions of infusoria, we are subtly gratified, andcherish a secret hope that the number of infusoria is very much morethan fifteen billions. In the same way, we hope that the number ofseats gained by the winning party will be even greater to-morrow thanit is to-day. 'We are sweeping the country, ' exclaims (say) theprofessed Liberal; and at the word 'sweeping' there is in his eyes agleam that no mere party feeling could have lit there. It is a gleamthat comes from the very depths of his soul--a reflection of the innatehuman passion for breaking records, or seeing them broken, no matterhow or why. 'Yes, ' says the professed Tory, 'you certainly are sweepingthe country. ' He tries to put a note of despondency into his voice; buthark how he rolls the word 'sweeping' over his tongue! He, too, thoughhe may not admit it, is longing to creep into the smoking-room of theNational Liberal Club and feast his eyes on the blazing galaxy of redseals affixed to the announcements of the polling. He turns to hisevening paper, and reads again the list of ex-Cabinet ministers whohave been unseated. He feels, in his heart of hearts, what fun it wouldbe if they had all been unseated. He grudges the exceptions. Forpolitical bias is one thing; human nature another. 

A PARALLEL

The club-room looked very like the auditorium of a music-hall. Indeed, that is what it must once have been. But now there were tiers ofbenches on the stage; and on these was packed a quarter or so of themembers and their friends. The other three-quarters or so were packedopposite the proscenium and down either side of the hall. And in themiddle of this human oblong was a raised platform, roped around. Therefrom, just as I was ushered to my place, a stout man in eveningdress was making some announcement. I did not catch its import; but itwas loudly applauded. The stout man--most of the audience indeed, seemed to have put on flesh--bowed himself off, and disappeared from myken in the clouds of tobacco-smoke that hung about the hall. Almostimmediately, two young people, nimbly insinuating themselves throughthe rope fence, leapt upon the platform. One was a man of about twentyyears of age; the other, a girl of about seventeen. She was verypretty; he was very handsome; both were becomingly dressed, withevident aim at attractiveness. They proceeded to opposite corners ofthe platform. At a signal from some one, they advanced to the middle;and each made a hideous grimace at the other. The grimace, strange initself, was stranger still in the light of what followed. For the youngman began to make passionate protestations of love, to which the girlresponded with equal ardour. The young man fell to his knees; the girlraised him, and clung to his breast. His language became more and morelyrical, his eyes more and more ecstatic. Suddenly in the middle of apretty sentence, wherein his love was likened to a flight of doves, abell rang; whereat, not less abruptly, the couple separated, retiringto the aforesaid corners of the platform and sinking back on theirchairs with every manifestation of fatigue. Their friends orattendants, however, rallied round them, counselling them, cooling themwith fans, heartening them to fresh endeavour; and when, at the end ofa minute, the signal was sounded for a second tryst, the two youngpeople seemed fresher and more eager than ever. This time, most of thelove-making was done by the girl; the young man joyously drinking inher words, and now and then interpolating a few of his own. There werefour trysts in all, with three intervals for recuperation. At thefourth sound of the bell, the lovers, stepping asunder, repeated theirhideous mutual grimace, and disappeared from the platform as suddenlyas they had come. Their place was soon taken by another, a more mature, and heavier, but not less personable, couple, who proceeded to makelove in their own somewhat different way. The lyrical notes seemed tobe missing in them. But maturity, though it had stripped away magic, had not blunted their passion--had, rather, sharpened the edge of it, and made it a stronger and more formidable instrument. Throughout theevening, indeed, in the long succession that there was of amorousencounters, it seemed to be the encounters of mature couples thatexcited in the smoke-laden audience the keenest interest. It wasevidently not etiquette to interrupt the lovers while they weretalking; but, whenever the bell sounded, there was a frantic outburstof sympathy, straight from the heart; and sometimes, even while alove-scene was proceeding, this or that stout gentleman would snatchthe cigar from his lips and emit a heart-cry. Now and again, it seemedto be thought that the lovers were insufficiently fervid--were butdallying with passion; and then there were stentorian grunts ofdisapproval and hortation. I did not gather that the audience itselfwas composed mainly of active lovers. I guessed that the greater numberconsisted of men who do but take an active interest in other people'slove affairs--men who, vigilant from a detached position, havedeveloped in themselves an extraordinarily sound critical knowledge ofwhat is due to Venus. 'Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, ' Imurmured; 'chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie. And wise are ye who, immune from all love's sorrow, win incessant joy in surveying Cytharathrough telescopes. Suave mari magno, ' I murmured. And this second tagcaused me to awake from my dream shivering. 

A strange dream? Yet a precisely parallel reality had inspired it. Ihad been taken over-night--my first visit--to the National SportingClub. 

The instinct to fight, like the instinct to love, is a quite naturalinstinct. To fight and to love are the primary instincts of primitiveman. I know that people with strongly amorous natures are not trainedand paid to make love ceremoniously, in accordance to certain ruleslaid down for them by certain authorities, and for the delectation ofhighly critical audiences. But, if this custom prevailed, it would notseem to me stranger than the custom of training and paying pugnaciouspeople to hit one another on the face and breast, with the greatestpossible skill and violence, for the delectation of highly criticalaudiences. I do not say that a glove-fight is in itself a visuallydisgusting exhibition. I saw no blood spilt, the other night, and nobruises expressed, by either the 'light-weights' or the'heavy-weights. ' I dare say, too, that the fighters enjoy theirprofession, on the whole. But I contend that it is a very lamentableprofession, in that it depends on the calculated prostitution of goodnatural energies. A declaration of love prefaced by a grimace, such asI saw in my dream, seems to me not one whit more monstrous than aviolent onslaught prefaced by a hand-shake. If two men are angry witheach other, let them fight it out (provided I be not one of them) inthe good old English fashion, by all means. But prize-fighting is to bedeplored as an offence against the soul of man. And this offence iscommitted, not by the fighters themselves, but by us soft and sedentarygentlemen who set them on to fight. Looking back at ancient Rome, noone blames the poor gladiators in the arena. Every one reserves hispious horror for the citizens in the amphitheatre. Yet how are wesuperior to them? Are we not even as they--suspended at exactly theirpoint between barbarism and civilisation. In course of time, doubtless, 'the ring'will die out. For either we shall become so civilised that weshall not rejoice in the sight of painful violence, or we shall relapseinto barbarism and go into the mauling business on our own account. Ourpresent stage--the stage of our transition--is not pretty, I think. 

A MORRIS FOR MAY-DAY

Not long ago a prospectus was issued by some more or less aestheticladies and gentlemen who, deeming modern life not so cheerful as itshould be, had laid their cheerless heads together and decided thatthey would meet once every month and dance old-fashioned dances in ahall hired for the purpose. Thus would they achieve a renascence--I amsure they called it a renascence--of 'Merrie England. ' I know notwhether subscriptions came pouring in. I know not even whether thesociety ever met. If it ever did meet, I conceive that its meetingsmust have been singularly dismal. If you are depressed by modern life, you are unlikely to find an anodyne in the self-appointed task ofcutting certain capers which your ancestors used to cut because they, in their day, were happy. If you think modern life so pleasant a thingthat you involuntarily prance, rather than walk, down the street, Idare say your prancing will intensify your joy. Though I happen neverto have met him out-of-doors, I am sure my friend Mr. GilbertChesterton always prances thus--prances in some wild way symbolical ofjoy in modern life. His steps, and the movements of his arms and body, may seem to you crude, casual, and disconnected at first sight; butthat is merely because they are spontaneous. If you studied themcarefully, you would begin to discern a certain rhythm, a certainharmony. You would at length be able to compose from them a specificdance--a dance not quite like any other--a dance formally expressive ofnew English optimism. If you are not optimistic, don't hope to becomeso by practising the steps. But practise them assiduously if you are;and get your fellow-optimists to practise them with you. You will growall the happier through ceremonious expression of a light heart. Andyour children and your children's children will dance 'The Chesterton'when you are no more. May be, a few of them will still be dancing itnow and then, on this or that devious green, even when optimism shallhave withered for ever from the land. Nor will any man mock at thesurvival. The dance will have lost nothing of its old grace, and willhave gathered that quality of pathos which makes even unlovely relicsdear to us--that piteousness which Time gives ever to things robbed oftheir meaning and their use. Spectators will love it for its melancholynot less than for its beauty. And I hope no mere spectator will be sofoolish as to say, 'Let us do it' with a view to reviving cheerfulnessat large. I hope it will be held sacred to those in whom it will be atradition--a familiar thing handed down from father to son. None butthey will be worthy of it. Others would ruin it. Be sure I trod nomeasure with the Morris-dancers whom I saw last May-day. 

It was in the wide street of a tiny village near Oxford that I sawthem. Fantastic--high-fantastical--figures they did cut in theirfinery. But in demeanour they were quite simple, quite serious, theseeight English peasants. They had trudged hither from the neighbouringvillage that was their home. And they danced quite simply, quiteseriously. One of them, I learned, was a cobbler, another a baker, andthe rest were farm-labourers. And their fathers and their fathers'fathers had danced here before them, even so, every May-day morning. They were as deeply rooted in antiquity as the elm outside the inn. They were here always in their season as surely as the elm put forthits buds. And the elm, knowing them, approving them, let itsgreen-flecked branches dance in unison with them. 

The first dance was in full swing when I approached. Only six of themen were dancers. Of the others, one was the 'minstrel, ' the other the'dysard. ' The minstrel was playing a flute; and the dysard I knew bythe wand and leathern bladder which he brandished as he walked around, keeping a space for the dancers, and chasing and buffeting merrily anyman or child who ventured too near. He, like the others, wore a whitesmock decked with sundry ribands, and a top-hat that must have belongedto his grandfather. Its antiquity of form and texture contrastedstrangely with the freshness of the garland of paper roses thatwreathed it. I was told that the wife or sweetheart of everyMorris-dancer takes special pains to deck her man out more gaily thanhis fellows. But this pious endeavour had defeated its own end. Sobewildering was the amount of brand-new bunting attached to all theseeight men that no matron or maiden could for the life of her havedetermined which was the most splendid of them all. Besides hisadventitious finery, every dancer, of course, had in his hands thescarves which are as necessary to his performance of the Morris as arethe bells strapped about the calves of his legs. Waving these scarvesand jangling these bells with a stolid rhythm, the six peasants dancedfacing one another, three on either side, while the minstrel fluted andthe dysard strutted around. That minstrel's tune runs in my head evennow--a queer little stolid tune that recalls vividly to me the aspectof the dance. It is the sort of tune Bottom the Weaver must often havedanced to in his youth. I wish I could hum it for you on paper. I wishI could set down for you on paper the sight that it conjures up. Butwhat writer that ever lived has been able to write adequately about adance? Even a slow, simple dance, such as these peasants wereperforming, is a thing that not the cunningest writer could fix inwords. Did not Flaubert say that if he could describe a valse he woulddie happy? I am sure he would have said this if it had occurred to him. 

Unable to make you see the Morris, how can I make you feel as I felt inseeing it? I cannot explain even to myself the effect it had on me. Mycritics have often complained of me that I lack 'heart'--presumably thesort of heart that is pronounced with a rolling of the r; and I supposethey are right. I remember having read the death of Little Nell on morethan one occasion without floods of tears. How can I explain to myselfthe tears that came into my eyes at sight of the Morris? They are notwithin the rubric of the tears drawn by mere contemplation of visualbeauty. The Morris, as I saw it, was curious, antique, racy, what youwill: not beautiful. Nor was there any obvious pathos in it. Often, inLondon, passing through some slum where a tune was being ground from anorgan, I have paused to watch the little girls dancing. In the swayingdances of these wan, dishevelled, dim little girls I have discernedauthentic beauty, and have wondered where they had learned the grace oftheir movements, and where the certainty with which they did suchstrange and complicated steps. Surely, I have thought, this is no trickof to-day or yesterday: here, surely, is the remainder of some oldtradition; here, may be, is Merrie England, run to seed. There is anobvious pathos in the dances of these children of the gutter--anobvious symbolism of sadness, of a wistful longing for freedom andfearlessness, for wind and sunshine. No wonder that at sight of it evenso heartless a person as the present writer is a little touched. Butwhy at sight of those rubicund, full-grown, eupeptic Morris-dancers onthe vernal highroad? No obvious pathos was diffusing itself from them. They were Merrie England in full flower. In part, I suppose, my tearswere tears of joy for the very joyousness of these men; in part, ofenvy for their fine simplicity; in part, of sorrow in the thought thatthey were a survival of the past, not types of the present, and thattheir knell would soon be tolled, and the old elm see their like nomore. 

After they had drunk some ale, they formed up for the second dance--acircular dance. And anon, above the notes of the flute and the janglingof the bells and the stamping of the boots, I seemed to hear the knellactually tolling, Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! A motor came fussing and fuming inits cloud of dust. Hoot! Hoot! The dysard ran to meet it, brandishinghis wand of office. He had to stand aside. Hoot! The dancers had justtime to get out of the way. The scowling motorists vanished. Dancersand dysard, presently visible through the subsiding dust, looked ratherfoolish and crestfallen. And all the branches of the conservative oldelm above them seemed to be quivering with indignation. 

In a sense this elm was a mere parvenu as compared with its beloveddancers. True, it had been no mere sapling in the reign of the seventhHenry, and so could remember distinctly the first Morris danced here. But the first Morris danced on English soil was not, by a long chalk, the first Morris. Scarves such as these were waved, and bells such asthese were jangled, and some such measure as this was trodden, in themists of a very remote antiquity. Spanish buccaneers, long before thedawn of the fifteenth century, had seen the Moors dancing somewhat thusto the glory of Allah. Home-coming, they had imitated that strange andsavage dance, expressive, for them, of the joy of being on firm nativeland again. The 'Morisco' they called it; and it was much admired; andthe fashion of it spread throughout Spain--scaled the very Pyrenees, and invaded France. To the 'Maurisce' succumbed 'tout Paris' as quicklyas in recent years it succumbed to the cake-walk. A troupe of Frenchdancers braved the terrors of the sea, and, with their scarves andtheir bells, danced for the delectation of the English court. 'TheKynge, ' it seems, 'was pleased by the bels and sweet dauncing. ' Certainof his courtiers 'did presentlie daunce so in open playces. ' No onewith any knowledge of the English nature will be surprised to hear thatthe cits soon copied the courtiers. But 'the Morrice was not for longepractysed in the cittie. It went to countrie playces. ' London, apparently, even in those days, did not breed joy in life. The Morrissought and found its proper home in the fields and by the wayside. Happy carles danced it to the glory of God, even as it had erst beendanced to the glory of Allah. 

It was no longer, of course, an explicitly religious dance. But neithercan its origin have been explicitly religious. Every dance, howeverformal it become later, begins as a mere ebullition of high spirits. The Dionysiac dances began in the same way as 'the Chesterton. ' SomeThessalian vintner, say, suddenly danced for sheer joy that the earthwas so bounteous; and his fellow vintners, sharing his joy, danced withhim; and ere their breath was spent they remembered who it was that hadgiven them such cause for merry-making, and they caught leaves from thevine and twined them in their hair, and from the fig-tree and thefir-tree they snatched branches, and waved them this way and that, asthey danced, in honour of him who was lord of these trees and of thiswondrous vine. Thereafter this dance of joy became a custom, ever to beobserved at certain periods of the year. It took on, beneath itsjoyousness, a formal solemnity. It was danced slowly around an altar ofstone, whereon wood and salt were burning--burning with little flamesthat were pale in the sunlight. Formal hymns were chanted around thisaltar. And some youth, clad in leopard's skin and wreathed with ivy, masqueraded as the god himself, and spoke words appropriate to thataugust character. It was from these beginnings that sprang the art-formof drama. The Greeks never hid the origin of this their plaything. Always in the centre of the theatre was the altar to Dionysus; and thechorus, circling around it, were true progeny of those old agresticsingers; and the mimes had never been but for that masquerading youth. It is hard to realise, yet it is true, that we owe to the worship ofDionysus so dreary a thing as the modern British drama. Strange thatthrough him who gave us the juice of the grape, 'fiery, venerable, divine, ' came this gift too! Yet I dare say the chorus of a musicalcomedy would not be awestruck--would, indeed, 'bridle'--if one unrolledto them their illustrious pedigree. 

The history of the Dionysiac dance has a fairly exact parallel in thatof the 'Morisco. ' Each dance has travelled far, and survives, shorn ofits explicitly religious character, and in many other ways 'diablementchange' en route. ' The 'Morisco, ' of course, has changed the less ofthe two. Besides the scarves and the bells, it seemed to me lastMay-day that the very steps danced and figures formed were very like tothose of which I had read, and which I had seen illustrated in oldEnglish and French engravings. Above all, the dancers seemed to retain, despite their seriousness, something of the joy in which the danceoriginated. They frowned as they footed it, but they were evidentlyhappy. Their frowns did but betoken determination to do well andrightly a thing that they loved doing--were proud of doing. The smilesof the chorus in a musical comedy seem but to express depreciation of arather tedious and ridiculous exercise. The coryphe'es are quiteevidently bored and ashamed. But these eight be-ribanded sons of thesoil were hardly less glad in dancing than was that antique Moor who, having slain beneath the stars some long-feared and long-hated enemy, danced wildly on the desert sand, and, to make music, tore strips ofbells from his horse's saddle and waved them in either hand while hedanced, and made so great a noise in the night air that other Moorscame riding to see what had happened, and marvelled at the sight andsound of the dance, and, praising Allah, leapt down and tore strips ofbells from their own saddles, and danced as nearly as they could inmimicry of that glad conqueror, to Allah's glory. 

As this scene is mobled in the aforesaid mists of antiquity, I cannotvouch for the details. Nor can I say just when the Moors found thatthey could make a finer and more rhythmic jangle by attaching the bellsto their legs than by swinging them in their hands. Nor can I fix theday when they tore strips from their turbans for their idle hands towave. I cannot say how long the rite's mode had been set when first theadventurers from Spain beheld it with their keen wondering eyes andfixed it for ever in their memories. 

In Spain, and then in France, and then in London, the dance wassecular. But perhaps I ought not to have said that it was 'notexplicitly religious' in the English countryside. The cult for RobinHood was veritably a religion throughout the Midland Counties. Rites inhis honour were performed on certain days of the year with a not lesshearty reverence, a not less quaint elaboration, than was infused intothe rustic Greek rites for Dionysus. The English carles danced, notindeed around an altar, but around a bunt pole crowned with suchflowers as were in season; and one of them, like the youth who in theDionysiac dance masqueraded as the god, was decked out duly as RobinHood--'with a magpye's plume to hys capp, ' we are told, and sometimes'a russat bearde compos'd of horses hair. ' The most famous of thedances for Robin Hood was the 'pageant. ' Herein appeared, besides thehero himself and various tabours and pipers, a 'dysard' or fool, andFriar Tuck, and Maid Marian--'in a white kyrtele and her hair allunbrayded, but with blossoms thereyn. ' This 'pageant' was performed atWhitsun, at Easter, on New-Year's day, and on May-day. The Morris, whenit had become known in the villages, was very soon incorporated in the'pageant. ' The Morris scarves and bells, the Morris steps and figures, were all pressed into the worship of Robin Hood. In most villages theproperties for the 'pageant' had always rested in the custody of thechurch-wardens. The properties for the Morris were now kept with them. In the Kingston accounts for 1537-8 are enumerated 'a fryers cote ofrussat, and a kyrtele weltyd with red cloth, a Mowrens cote of buckram, and four morres daunsars cotes of white fustian spangelid, and twogryne saten cotes, and disarddes cote of cotton, and six payre ofgarters with belles. ' The 'pageant' itself fell, little by little, intodisuse; the Morris, which had been affiliated to it, superseded it. Ofthe 'pageant' nothing remained but the minstrel and the dysard and anoccasional Maid Marian. In the original Morris there had been no musicsave that of the bells. But now there was always a flute or tabor. Thedysard, with his rod and leathern bladder, was promoted to a sort ofleadership. He did not dance, but gave the signal for the dance, anddistributed praise or blame among the performers, and had power todegrade from the troupe any man who did not dance with enough skill orenough heartiness. Often there were in one village two rival troupes ofdancers, and a prize was awarded to whichever acquitted itself the moreadmirably. But not only the 'ensemble' was considered. A sort of 'starsystem' seems to have crept in. Often a prize would be awarded to someone dancer who had excelled his fellows. There were, I suppose, 'born'Morris-dancers. Now and again, one of them, flushed with triumph, wouldsecern himself from his troupe, and would 'star' round the country forhis livelihood. 

Such a one was Mr. William Kemp, who, at the age of seventeen, and inthe reign of Queen Elizabeth, danced from his native village to London, where he educated himself and became an actor. Perhaps he was not agood actor, for he presently reverted to the Morris. He danced all theway from London to Norwich, and wrote a pamphlet about it--'Kemp's NineDajes' Wonder, performed in a daunce from London to Norwich. Containingthe pleasures, paines, and kind entertainment of William Kemp betweeneLondon and that Citty, in his late Morrice. ' He seems to haveencountered more pleasures than 'paines. ' Gentle and simple, all theway, were very cordial. The gentle entertained him in their mansions bynight. The simple danced with him by day. In Sudbury 'there came alusty tall fellow, a butcher by his profession, that would in a Moricekeepe me company to Bury. I gave him thankes, and forward wee did set;but ere ever wee had measur'd halfe a mile of our way, he gave me overin the plain field, protesting he would not hold out with me; for, indeed, my pace in dauncing is not ordinary. As he and I were parting, a lusty country lasse being among the people, cal'd him faint-heartedlout, saying, "If I had begun to daunce, I would have held out onemyle, though it had cost my life. " At which words many laughed. "Nay, "saith she, "if the dauncer will lend me a leash of his belles, I'leventer to treade one myle with him myself. " I lookt upon her, saw mirthin her eies, heard boldness in her words, and beheld her ready to tuckeup her russat petticoate; and I fitted her with bels, which she merrilytaking garnisht her thicke short legs, and with a smooth brow bad thetabur begin. The drum strucke; forward marcht I with my merry MaydeMarian, who shook her stout sides, and footed it merrily to Melford, being a long myle. There parting with her (besides her skinfull ofdrinke), and English crowne to buy more drinke; for, good wench, shewas in a pittious heate; my kindness she requited with dropping a dozengood courtsies, and bidding God blesse the dauncer. I bade her adieu;and, to give her her due, she had a good eare, daunst truly, and weeparted friends. ' Kemp, you perceive, wrote as well as he danced. I wishhe had danced less and written more. It seems that he never wroteanything but this one delightful pamphlet. He died three years later, in the thirtieth year of his age--died dancing, with his bells on hislegs, in the village of Ockley. 

John Thorndrake, another professional Morris-dancer, was not sobrilliant a personage as poor Kemp; but was of tougher fibre, it wouldseem. He died in his native town, Canterbury, at the age ofseventy-eight; and had danced--never less than a mile, seldom less thanfive miles--every day, except Sunday, for sixty years. But even hisrecord pales beside the account of a Morris that was danced by eightmen, in Hereford, one May-day in the reign of James I. The united agesof these dancers, according to a contemporary pamphleteer, exceededeight hundred years. The youngest of them was seventy-nine, and theages of the rest ranged between ninety-five and a hundred and nine. 'And they daunced right well. ' Of the hold that the Morris had onEngland, could there be stronger proof than in the feat of theseindomitable dotards? The Morris ceased not even during the Civil Wars. Some of King Charles's men (according to Groby, the Puritan) dancedthus on the eve of Naseby. Not even the Protectorate could stamp theMorris out, though we are told that Groby and other preachersthroughout the land inveighed against it as 'lewde' and 'ungodlie. ' TheRestoration was in many places celebrated by special Morrises. Theperihelion of this dance seems, indeed, to have been in the reign ofCharles II. Georgian writers treated it somewhat as a survival, andwere not always even tender to it. Says a writer in Bladud's Courier, describing a 'soire'e de beaute'' given by Lady Jersey, 'Mrs. ---- (labelle) looked as silly and gaudy, I do vow, as one of the old MorrisDancers. ' And many other writers--from Horace Walpole to CaptainHarver--have their sneer at the Morris. Its rusticity did not appeal tothe polite Georgian mind; and its Moorishness, which would haveappealed strongly, was overlooked. Still, the Morris managed to surviveurban disdain--was still dear to the carles whose fathers had taught itthem. 

And long may it linger!

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS MANNER

A grave and beautiful place, the Palace of Westminster. I sometimes goto that little chamber of it wherein the Commons sit sprawling or standspouting. I am a constant reader of the 'graphic reports' of what goeson in the House of Commons; and the writers of these things alwaysstrive to give one the impression that nowhere is the human comedy sofast and furious, nowhere played with such skill and brio, as at St. Stephen's; and I am rather easily influenced by anything that appearsin daily print, for I have a burning faith in the sagacity anduprightness of sub-editors; and so, when the memory of my last visit tothe House has lost its edge, and when there is a crucial debate inprospect, to the House I go, full of hope that this time I really shallbe edified or entertained. With an open mind I go, reeking naught ofthe pro's and con's of the subject of the debate. I go as to agladiatorial show, eager to applaud any man who shall wield his swordbrilliantly. If a 'stranger' indulge in applause, he is tapped on theshoulder by one of those courteous, magpie-like officials, andconducted beyond the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. I speakfrom hearsay. I do not think I have ever seen a 'stranger' applauding. My own hands, certainly, never have offended. 

Years ago, when to be a member of the House of Commons was to be (or todeem oneself) a personage of great importance, the debates wereconducted with a keen eye to effect. Members who had a sense of beautymade their speeches beautiful, and even those to whom it was denied didtheir best. Grace of ample gesture was cultivated, and sonorouselocution, and lucid ordering of ideas, and noble language. In fact, there was a school of oratory. This is no mere superstition, bred ofman's innate tendency to exalt the past above the present. It is a factthat can easily be verified through contemporary records. It is a factwhich I myself have verified in the House with my own eyes and ears. More than once, I heard there--and it was a pleasure and privilege tohear--a speech made by Sir William Harcourt. And from his speeches Iwas able to deduce the manner of his coevals and his forerunners. Longpast his prime he was, and bearing up with very visible effort againsthis years. An almost extinct volcano! But sufficient to imaginationthese glimpses of the glow that had been, and the sight of these lastpoor rivulets of the old lava. An almost extinct volcano, but majesticamong mole-hills! Assuredly, the old school was a fine one. It had itsfaults, of course--floridness, pomposity, too much histrionism. It was, indeed, very like the old school of acting, in its defects as in itsqualities. With all his defects, what a relief it is to see one of theold actors among a cast of new ones! How he takes the stage, makinghimself felt--and heard! How surely he achieves his effects in thegrand manner! Robustious? Yes. But it is better to exaggerate a stylethan to have no style at all. That is what is the matter with theseothers--these quiet, shifty, shamefaced others they have no style atall. And as is the difference between the old actor and them, so, precisely was the difference between Sir William Harcourt and themodern members. 

I do not desire the new actors to model themselves on the old, whosemanner is quite incongruous with the character of modern drama. All Iwould have them do is to achieve the manner for which they are darklyfumbling. Even so, I do not demand oratory of the modern senators. Oratory I love, but I admit that the time for it is bygone. It belongedto the age of port. On plenty of port the orator spoke, and on plentyof port his audience listened to him. A diet-bound generation canhardly produce an orator; and if, by some mysterious throw-back, anorator actually is produced, he falls very flat. There was in mycollege at Oxford a little 'Essay Society, ' to which I found myselfbelonging. We used to meet every Thursday evening in the room of thisor that member; and, when coffee had been handed round, one of us readan essay--a calm little mild essay on one of those vast themes that noundergraduate can resist. After this, we had a calm little milddiscussion 'It seems to me that the reader of the paper has hardly laidenough stress on. .. ' One of these evenings I can recall mostdistinctly. A certain freshman had been elected. The man who was tohave read an essay had fallen ill, and the freshman had been asked tostep into the breach. This he did, with an essay on 'The Ideals ofMazzini, ' and with strange and terrific effect. During the exordium weraised our eyebrows. Presently we were staring open-mouthed. Where werewe? In what wild dream were we drifting? To this day I can recite theperoration. Mazzini is dead. But his spirit lives, and can never becrushed. And his motto--the motto that he planted on the gallant bannerof the Italian Republic, and sealed with his life's blood, remains, andshall remain, till, through the eternal ages, the universal airre-echoes to the inspired shout--'GOD AND THE PEOPLE!'

The freshman had begun to read his essay in a loud, declamatory style;but gradually, knowing with an orator's instinct, I suppose, that hisaudience was not 'with' him, he had quieted down, and become rathernervous--too nervous to skip, as I am sure he wished to skip, theespecially conflagrant passages. But, as the end hove in sight, hisconfidence was renewed. A wave of emotion rose to sweep him ashore uponits crest. He gave the peroration for all it was worth. Mazzini isdead. I can hear now the hushed tone in which he spoke those words; thepause that followed them; and the gradual rising of his voice to aculmination at the words 'inspired shout'; and then another pausebefore that husky whisper 'GOD AND THE PEOPLE. ' There was nodiscussion. We were petrified. We sat like stones; and presently, likeshadows, we drifted out into the evening air. The little society metonce or twice again; but any activity it still had was but the faintconvulsion of a murdered thing. Old wine had been poured into a newbottle, with the usual result. Broken even so, belike, would be theglass roof of the Commons if a member spouted up to it such words as weheard that evening in Oxford. At any rate, the member would be howleddown. So strong is the modern distaste for oratory. The day fororatory, as for toping, is past beyond redemption. 'Debating' is thebest that can be done and appreciated by so abstemious a generation asours. You will find a very decent level of 'debating' in the OxfordUnion, in the Balham Ethical Society, in the Pimlico Parliament, andelsewhere. But not, I regret to say, in the House of Commons. 

No one supposes that in a congeries of--how many?--six hundred andseventy men, chosen by the British public, there will be a very highaverage of mental capacity. If any one were so sanguine, a glance atthe faces of our Conscript Fathers along the benches would soon bleedhim. (I have no doubt that the custom of wearing hats in the Houseoriginated in the members' unwillingness to let strangers spy down onthe shapes of their heads. ) But it is not unreasonable to expect thatthe more active of these gentlemen will, through constant practice, notonly in the senate, but also at elections and public dinners and soforth, have acquired a rough-and-ready professionalism in the art ofspeaking. It is not unreasonable to expect that they will be fairlyfluent--fairly capable of arranging in logical sequence such ideas asthey may have formed, and of reeling out words more or less expressiveof these ideas. Well! certain of the Irishmen, certain of the Welshmen, proceed easily enough. But oh! those Saxon others! Look at them, harkat them, poor dears! See them clutching at their coats, and shufflingfrom foot to foot in travail, while their ideas--ridiculous mice, forthe most part--get jerked painfully out somehow and anyhow. 'It seemsto me that the Right--the honourable member for--er--er (the speakerdives to be prompted)--yes, of course--South Clapham--er--(temporising)the Southern division of Clapham--(long pause; his lips form the words'Where was I?')--oh yes, the honourable gentleman the member for SouthClapham seems to me to me--to be--in the position of one who, whilstthe facts on which his propo--supposition are based--er--may or may notbe in themselves acc--correct (gasps)--yetinasmuch--because--nevertheless. .. I should say rather--er--what itcomes to is this: the honourable member for North--South Clapham seemsto be labouring under a total, an entire, a complete (emphatic gesture, which throws him off his tack)--a contire--a completedisill--misunderstanding of the things which he himself relies onas--as--as a backing-up of the things that he would have us takeor--er--accept and receive as the right sort of reduction--deductionfrom the facts of. .. In fact, from the facts of the case. ' Then the poordear heaves a deep sigh of relief, which is drowned by other members ina hideous cachinnation meant to express mirth. 

And the odd thing is that the mirth is quite sincere and quitefriendly. The speaker has just scored a point, though you mightn'tthink it. He has just scored a point in the true House of Commonsmanner. Possibly you have never been to the House of Commons, andsuspect that I have caricatured its manner. Not at all. Indeed, to savespace in these pages, I have rather improved it. If a phonograph werekept in the house, you would learn from it that the average sentence ofthe average speaker is an even more grotesque abortion than I haveadumbrated. Happily for the prestige of the House, phonographs areexcluded. Certain skilled writers--modestly dubbing themselves'reporters'--are admitted, and by them cosmos is conjured out of chaos. 'The member for South Clapham appeared to be labouring under amisapprehension of the nature of the facts on which his argument wasbased (Laughter). ' That is the finished article that your morning paperoffers to you. And you, enjoying the delicious epigram over your teaand toast, are as unconscious of the toil that went to make it, and ofthe crises through which it passed, as you are of those poor sowers andreapers, planters and sailors and colliers, but for whom there would beno fragrant tea and toast for you. 

The English are a naturally silent race. The most popular type ofnational hero is the 'strong silent man. ' And most of the members ofthe House of Commons are, at any rate, silent members. Mercifullysilent. Seeing the level attained by such members as have an impulse tospeak, I shudder to conceive an oration by one of those unimpelledmembers. .. Perhaps I am too nervous. Surely I am too nervous. Surelythe House of Commons manner cannot be a natural growth. Such perfectvirtuosity in dufferdom can be acquired only by constant practice. Buthow comes it to be practised? I can only repeat that the English are anaturally silent race. They are apt to mistrust fluency. 'Glibness'they call it, and scent behind it the adventurer, the player of theconfidence trick or the three-card trick, the robber of the widow andthe orphan. Be smooth-tongued, and the Englishman will withdraw fromyou as quickly as may be, walking sideways like a crab, and lookingaskance at you with panic in his eyes. But stammer and blurt to him, and he will fall straight under the spell of your transparent honesty. A silly superstition; but there it is, ineradicable; and through it, undoubtedly, has come the house of Commons manner. Sometimes, throughsheer nervousness, a new member achieves something like that manner;insomuch that his maiden speech is adjudged rich in promise, and 'theear of the House' is assured to him when next he rises. Then is thedangerous time for him. He has conquered his nervousness now, but hasnot yet acquired that complex and delicate technique whereby a man canproduce the illusion that he is striving hopelessly to utter somethingwhich, really, he could say with perfect ease. Thus he forfeits thesympathy of the House. Members stroll listlessly out. There is a buzzof conversation along the benches--perhaps the horrific refrain ''Vide, 'Vide, 'Vide. ' But the time will come when they shall hear him. Yearshence--a beacon to show the heights that can be sealed byperseverance--he shall stand fumbling and floundering in a rapt senate. 

Well! I take off my hat to virtuosity in any form. I admireDemosthenes, for whom pebbles in the mouth were a means to the end oforatory. I admire the Demosthenes de nos jours, for whom oratory is ameans to the end of pebbles in the mouth. But I desire that theintelligent foreigner and the intelligent country cousin be notdisappointed when they visit the House of Commons. Hitherto, strangershave expected to find there an exhibition of the art of speaking. Thatis the fault partly of those reporters to whom I have paid awell-deserved tribute. But it is more especially the fault of thoseother 'graphic' reporters, who write their lurid impressions of thedebates. These gentlemen are most wildly misleading. I don't think theymislead you intentionally. If a man criticises one kind of ill-donething exclusively, he cannot but, in course of time, lower hisstandard. Seeing nothing good, he will gradually forget what goodnessis; and will accept as good that which is least bad. So it is with thegraphic reporter in Parliament. He really does imagine that Hob 'rakedthe Treasury Bench with a merciless fire of raillery, ' and that Nob'went, as is his way, straight to the root of the subject, ' and thatChittabob 'struck a deep note of pathos that will linger long in thememory of all who heard him. ' If Hob, Nob, and Chittabob happen to bein opposition to the politics of the newspaper which he adorns, he willperhaps tell the truth about their respective performances. But he willtell it without believing it. All his geese are swans--bless him!--evenwhen he won't admit it. The moral is that no man should be employed asgraphic reporter for more than one session. Then the public would beginto learn the truth about St. Stephen's. Nor need the editors flinchfrom such a consummation. They used to entertain a theory that it wassafest to have the productions at every theatre praised, in case anymanager should withdraw his advertisements. But there need be no suchfear in regard to St. Stephen's. That establishment does not advertiseitself in the press as a place of amusement. Why should the pressadvertise it gratuitously?

For utility's sake, as well as for truth's, I would have the publicenlightened. Exposed to ruthless criticism, our Commons might be shamedinto an attempt at proficiency in the art of speaking. Then thesessions would be comparatively brief. After all, it is on the nationitself that falls the cost of lighting, warming, and ventilating St. Stephen's during the session. All the aforesaid dufferdom, therefore, increases the burden of the taxpayer. All those hum's and ha's mean somany pence from the pockets of you, reader, and me. 

THE NAMING OF STREETS

'The Rebuilding of London' proceeds ruthlessly apace. The humble oldhouses that dare not scrape the sky are being duly punished for theirtimidity. Down they come; and in their place are shot up new tenements, quick and high as rockets. And the little old streets, so narrow andexclusive, so shy and crooked--we are making an example of them, too. We lose our way in them, do we?--we whose time is money. Our omnibusescan't trundle through them, can't they? Very well, then. Down withthem! We have no use for them. This is the age of 'noble arteries. '

'The Rebuilding of London' is a source of much pride and pleasure tomost of London's citizens, especially to them who are countycouncillors, builders, contractors, navvies, glaziers, decorators, andso forth. There is but a tiny residue of persons who do not swell andsparkle. And of these glum bystanders at the carnival I am one. Ouraloofness is mainly irrational, I suppose. It is due mainly totemperamental Toryism. We say 'The old is better. ' This we say toourselves, every one of us feeling himself thereby justified in hisattitude. But we are quite aware that such a postulate would not beaccepted by time majority. For the majority, then, let us make someshow of ratiocination. Let us argue that, forasmuch as London is anhistoric city, with many phases and periods behind her, and forasmuchas many of these phases and periods are enshrined in the aspect of herbuildings, the constant rasure of these buildings is a disservice tothe historian not less than to the mere sentimentalist, and that itwill moreover (this is a more telling argument) filch from Englishmenthe pleasant power of crowing over Americans, and from Americans theunpleasant necessity of balancing their pity for our present with envyof our past. After all, our past is our point d'appui. Our present ismerely a bad imitation of what the Americans can do much better. 

Ignoring as mere scurrility this criticism of London's present, buttouched by my appeal to his pride in its history, the average citizenwill reply, reasonably enough, to this effect: 'By all means let ushave architectural evidence of our epochs--Caroline, Georgian, Victorian, what you will. But why should the Edvardian be ruled out?London is packed full of architecture already. Only by rasing much ofits present architecture can we find room for commemorating duly theglorious epoch which we have just entered. To this reply there are tworejoinders: (1) let special suburbs be founded for Edvardian buildings;(2) there are no really Edvardian buildings, and there won't be any. Long before the close of the Victorian Era our architects had ceased tobe creative. They could not express in their work the spirit of theirtime. They could but evolve a medley of old styles, some foreign, somenative, all inappropriate. Take the case of Mayfair. Mayfair has forsome years been in a state of transition. The old Mayfair, grim andsombre, with its air of selfish privacy and hauteur and leisure, itsplain bricked facades, so disdainful of show--was it not redolent ofthe century in which it came to being? Its wide pavements and narrowroads between--could not one see in them the time when by day gentlemenand ladies went out afoot, needing no vehicle to whisk them to adestination, and walked to and fro amply, needing elbow-room for theirdignity and their finery, and by night were borne in chairs, singly?And those queer little places of worship, those stucco chapels, withtheir very secular little columns, their ample pews, and theirnegligible altars over which one saw the Lion and the Unicorn fighting, as who should say, for the Cross--did they not breathe all theinimitable Erastianism of their period? In qua te qaero proseucha, myLady Powderbox? Alas! every one of your tabernacles is dust now--dustturned to mud by the tears of the ghost of the Rev. Charles Honeyman, and by my own tears. .. . I have strayed again into sentiment. Back tothe point--which is that the new houses and streets in Mayfair meannothing. Let me show you Mount Street. Let me show you that airystretch of sham antiquity, and defy you to say that it symbolises, howremotely soever, the spirit of its time. Mount Street is typical of thenew Mayfair. And the new Mayfair is typical of the new London. In theheight of these new houses, in the width of these new roads, futurestudents will find, doubtless, something characteristic of thispressing and bustling age. But from the style of the houses he willlearn nothing at all. The style might mean anything; and means, therefore, nothing. Original architecture is a lost art in England; andan art that is once lost is never found again. The Edvardian Era cannotbe commemorated in its architecture. 

Erection of new buildings robs us of the past and gives us in exchangenothing of the present. Consequently, the excuse put by me into thegaping mouth of the average Londoner cannot be accepted. I had no ideathat my case was such a good one. Having now vindicated on grounds ofpatriotic utility that which I took to be a mere sentimental prejudice, I may be pardoned for dragging 'beauty' into the question. The newbuildings are not only uninteresting through lack of temporal and localsignificance: they are also hideous. With all his learned eclecticism, the new architect seems unable to evolve a fake that shall be pleasingto the eye. Not at all pleasing is a mad hotch-potch of early Victorianhospital, Jacobean manor-house, Venetian palace, and bride-cake inGunter's best manner. Yet that, apparently, is the modern Englisharchitect's pet ideal. Even when he confines himself to one manner, theresult (even if it be in itself decent) is made horrible by vicinity tothe work of a rival who has been dabbling in some other manner. Everystreet in London is being converted into a battlefield of styles, allshrieking at one another, all murdering one another. The tumult may beexciting, especially to the architects, but it is not beautiful. It isnot good to live in. 

However, I am no propagandist. I am not sanguine enough to suppose thatI could do anything to stop either the adulteration or the demolitionof old streets. I do not wish to infect the public with my ownmisgivings. On the contrary, my motive for this essay is to inoculatethe public with my own placid indifference in a certain matter whichseems always to cause them painful anxiety. Whenever a new highway isabout to be opened, the newspapers are filled with letters suggestingthat it ought to be called by this or that beautiful name, or by thename of this or that national hero. Well, in point of fact, a namecannot (in the long-run) make any shadow of difference in our sentimentfor the street that bears it, for our sentiment is solely according tothe character of the street itself; and, further, a street does nothingat all to keep green the memory of one whose name is given to it. 

For a street one name is as good as another. To prove this proposition, let us proceed by analogy of the names borne by human beings. Surnamesand Christian names may alike be divided into two classes: (1) thosewhich, being identical with words in the dictionary, connote somedefinite thing; (2) those which, connoting nothing, may or may notsuggest something by their sound. Instances of Christian names in thefirst class are Rose, Faith; of surnames, Lavender, Badger; ofChristian names in the second class, Celia, Mary; of surnames, Jones, Vavasour. Let us consider the surnames in the first class. You willsay, off-hand, that Lavender sounds pretty, and that Badger soundsugly. Very well. Now, suppose that Christian names connoting unpleasantthings were sometimes conferred at baptisms. Imagine two sisters namedNettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that these names sound ugly, whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet, believe me, there is not, inpoint of actual sound, one pin to choose either between Badger andLavender, or between Rose and Nettle, or between Faith and Envy. Thereis no such thing as a singly euphonious or a singly cacophonous name. There is no word which, by itself, sounds ill or well. In combination, names or words may be made to sound ill or well. A sentence can bemusical or unmusical. But in detachment words are no more preferableone to another in their sound than are single notes of music. What youtake to be beauty or ugliness of sound is indeed nothing but beauty orugliness of meaning. You are pleased by the sound of such words asgondola, vestments, chancel, ermine, manor-house. They seem to befraught with a subtle onomatopoeia, severally suggesting by theirsounds the grace or sanctity or solid comfort of the things which theyconnote. You murmur them luxuriously, dreamily. Prepare for a slightshock. Scrofula, investments, cancer, vermin, warehouse. Horriblewords, are they not? But say gondola--scrofula, vestments--investments, and so on; and then lay your hand on your heart, and declare that thewords in the first list are in mere sound nicer than the words in thesecond. Of course they are not. If gondola were a disease, and if ascrofula were a beautiful boat peculiar to a beautiful city, the effectof each word would be exactly the reverse of what it is. This rule maybe applied to all the other words in the two lists. And these listsmight, of course, be extended to infinity. The appropriately beautifulor ugly sound of any word is an illusion wrought on us by what the wordconnotes. Beauty sounds as ugly as ugliness sounds beautiful. Neitherof them has by itself any quality in sound. 

It follows, then, that the Christian names and surnames in my firstclass sound beautiful or ugly according to what they connote. The soundof those in the second class depends on the extent to which it suggestsany known word more than another. Of course, there might be a namehideous in itself. There might, for example, be a Mr. Griggsbiggmiggs. But there is not. And the fact that I, after prolonged study of aPostal Directory, have been obliged to use my imagination as factoryfor a name that connotes nothing and is ugly in itself may be taken asproof that such names do not exist actually. You cannot stump me byciting Mr. Matthew Arnold's citation of the words 'Ragg is in custody, 'and his comment that 'there was no Ragg by the Ilyssus. ' 'Ragg' has notan ugly sound in itself. Mr. Arnold was jarred merely by its suggestionof something ugly, a rag, and by the cold brutality of the police-courtreporter in withholding the prefix 'Miss' from a poor girl who had gotinto trouble. If 'Ragg' had been brought to his notice as the name ofsome illustrious old family, Mr. Arnold would never have dragged in theIlyssus. The name would have had for him a savour of quaintdistinction. The suggestion of a rag would never have struck him. Forit is a fact that whatever thing may be connoted or suggested by a nameis utterly overshadowed by the name's bearer (unless, as in the case ofpoor 'Ragg, ' there is seen to be some connexion between the bearer andthe thing implied by the name). Roughly, it may be said that all namesconnote their bearers, and them only. 

To have a 'beautiful' name is no advantage. To have an 'ugly' name isno drawback. I am aware that this is a heresy. In a famous passage, Bulwer Lytton propounded through one of his characters a theory that'it is not only the effect that the sound of a name has on others whichis to be thoughtfully considered; the effect that his name produces onthe man himself is perhaps still more important. Some names stimulateand encourage the owner, others deject and paralyse him. '

Bulwer himself, I doubt not, believed that there was something in thistheory. It is natural that a novelist should. He is always at greatpains to select for his every puppet a name that suggests to himselfthe character which he has ordained for that puppet. In real life ababy gets its surname by blind heredity, its other names by the blindwhim of its parents, who know not at all what sort of a person it willeventually become. And yet, when these babies grow up, their names seemevery whit as appropriate as do the names of the romantic puppets. 'Obviously, ' thinks the novelist, 'these human beings must "grow to"their names; or else, we must be viewing them in the light of theirnames. ' And the quiet ordinary people, who do not write novels, inclineto his conjectures. How else can they explain the fact that every nameseems to fit its bearer so exactly, to sum him or her up in a flash?The true explanation, missed by them, is that a name derives its wholequality from its bearer, even as does a word from its meaning. The lateSir Redvers Buller, tauredon hupoblepsas [spelled in Greek, fromPlato's Phaedo 117b], was thought to be peculiarly well fitted with hisname. Yet had it belonged not to him, but to (say) some gentle andthoughtful ecclesiastic, it would have seemed quite as inevitable. 'Gore' is quite as taurine as 'Buller, ' and yet does it not seem to usthe right name for the author of Lux Mundi? In connection with him, whois struck by its taurinity? What hint of ovinity would there have beenfor us if Sir Redvers' surname had happened to be that of him who wrotethe Essays of Elia? Conversely, 'Charles Buller' seems to us now animpossible nom de vie for Elia; yet it would have done just as well, really. Even 'Redvers Buller' would have done just as well. 'WalterPater' means for us--how perfectly!--the author of Marius theEpicurean, whilst the author of All Sorts and Conditions of Men wassummed up for us, not less absolutely, in 'Walter Besant. ' And yet, ifthe surnames of these two opposite Walters had been changed at birth, what difference would have been made? 'Walter Besant' would havesignified a prose style sensuous in its severity, an exquisitelypatient scholarship, an exquisitely sympathetic way of criticism. 'Walter Pater' would have signified no style, but an unslakable thirstfor information, and a bustling human sympathy, and power of carryingthings through. Or take two names often found in conjunction--Johnsonand Boswell. Had the dear great oracle been named Boswell, and had thesitter-at-his-feet been named Johnson, would the two names seem to usless appropriate than they do? Should we suffer any greater loss thanif Salmon were Gluckstein, and Gluckstein Salmon? Finally, take a casein which the same name was borne by two very different characters. Whatname could seem more descriptive of a certain illustrious Archbishop ofWestminster than 'Manning'? It seems the very epitome of saintlyastuteness. But for 'Cardinal' substitute 'Mrs. ' as its prefix, and, presto! it is equally descriptive of that dreadful medio-Victorianmurderess who in the dock of the Old Bailey wore a black satin gown, and thereby created against black satin a prejudice which has butlately died. In itself black satin is a beautiful thing. Yet for manyyears, by force of association, it was accounted loathsome. Conversely, one knows that many quite hideous fashions in costume have been set bybeautiful women. Such instances of the subtle power of association willmake clear to you how very easily a name (being neither beautiful norhideous in itself) can be made hideous or beautiful by its bearer--howinevitably it becomes for us a symbol of its bearer's most salientqualities or defects, be they physical, moral, or intellectual. 

Streets are not less characteristic than human beings. 'Look!' cried afriend of mine, whom lately I found studying a map of London, 'isn't itappalling? All these streets--thousands of them--in this tiny compass!Think of the miles and miles of drab monotony this map contains! Ipointed out to him (it is a thinker's penalty to be always pointingthings out to people) that his words were nonsense. I told him that thestreets on this map were no more monotonous than the rivers on the mapof England. Just as there were no two rivers alike, every one of themhaving its own speed, its own windings, depths, and shallows, its ownway with the reeds and grasses, so had every street its own claim to anespecial nymph, forasmuch as no two streets had exactly the sameproportions, the same habitual traffic, the same type of shops orhouses, the same inhabitants. In some cases, of course, the differencebetween the 'atmosphere' of two streets is a subtle difference. But itis always there, not less definite to any one who searches for it thanthe difference between (say) Hill Street and Pont Street, High StreetKensington and High Street Notting Hill, Fleet Street and the Strand. Ihave here purposely opposed to each other streets that have obviouspoints of likeness. But what a yawning gulf of difference is betweeneach couple! Hill Street, with its staid distinction, and Pont Street, with its eager, pushful 'smartness, ' its air de petit parvenu, itsobvious delight in having been 'taken up'; High Street Notting Hill, down-at-heels and unashamed, with a placid smile on its broad uglyface, and High Street Kensington, with its traces of former beauty, andits air of neatness and self-respect, as befits one who in her day hasbeen caressed by royalty; Fleet Street, that seething channel ofbusiness, and the Strand, that swollen river of business, on whosesurface float so many aimless and unsightly objects. In every one ofthese thoroughfares my mood and my manner are differently affected. InHill Street, instinctively, I walk very slowly--sometimes, even with aslight limp, as one recovering from an accident in the hunting-field. Ifeel very well-bred there, and, though not clever, very proud, andquick to resent any familiarity from those whom elsewhere I shouldregard as my equals. In Pont Street my demeanour is not so calm andmeasured. I feel less sure of myself, and adopt a slight swagger. InHigh Street, Kensington, I find myself dapper and respectable, with atimid leaning to the fine arts. In High Street, Notting Hill, I becomefrankly common. Fleet Street fills me with a conviction that if I don'tmake haste I shall be jeopardising the national welfare. The Strandutterly unmans me, leaving me with only two sensations: (1) a regretthat I have made such a mess of my life; (2) a craving for alcohol. These are but a few instances. If I had time, I could show you thatevery street known to me in London has a definite effect on me, andthat no two streets have exactly the same effect. For the most part, these effects differ in kind according only to the different districtsand their different modes of life; but they differ in detail accordingto such specific little differences as exist between such cognatestreets as Bruton Street and Curzon Street, Doughty Street and GreatRussell Street. Every one of my readers, doubtless, realises that he, too, is thus affected by the character of streets. And I doubt not thatfor him, as for me, the mere sound or sight of a street's name conjuresup the sensation he feels when he passes through that street. For him, probably, the name of every street has hitherto seemed to be also itsexact, inevitable symbol, a perfect suggestion of its character. He hasbelieved that the grand or beautiful streets have grand or beautifulnames, the mean or ugly streets mean or ugly names. Let me assure himthat this is a delusion. The name of a street, as of a human being, derives its whole quality from its bearer. 

'Oxford Street' sounds harsh and ugly. 'Manchester Street' soundsrather charming. Yet 'Oxford' sounds beautiful, and 'Manchester' soundsodious. 'Oxford' turns our thoughts to that 'adorable dreamer, whispering from her spires the last enchantments of the Middle Age. ' Anuproarious monster, belching from its factory-chimneys the latestexhalations of Hell--that is the image evoked by 'Manchester. ' Butneither in 'Manchester Street' is there for us any hint of thatmonster, nor in 'Oxford Street' of that dreamer. The names have becomepart and parcel of the streets. You see, then, that it matters notwhether the name given to a new street be one which in itself suggestsbeauty, or one which suggests ugliness. In point of fact, it isgenerally the most pitiable little holes and corners that bear the mostambitiously beautiful names. To any one who has studied London, such atitle as 'Paradise Court' conjures up a dark fetid alley, with untidyfat women gossiping in it, untidy thin women quarrelling across it, ahost of haggard and shapeless children sprawling in its mud, and one ortwo drunken men propped against its walls. Thus, were there an officialnomenclator of streets, he might be tempted to reject such names as inthemselves signify anything beautiful. But his main principle would beto bestow whatever name first occurred to him, in order that he mightsave time for thinking about something that really mattered. 

I have yet to fulfil the second part of my promise: show the futilityof trying to commemorate a hero by making a street his namesake. Byimplication I have done this already. But, for the benefit of the lessnimble among my readers, let me be explicit. Who, passing through theCromwell Road, ever thinks of Cromwell, except by accident? Whatjournalist ever thinks of Wellington in Wellington Street? InMarlborough Street, what policeman remembers Marlborough? In St. James's Street, has any one ever fancied he saw the ghost of a pilgrimwrapped in a cloak, leaning on a staff? Other ghosts are there inplenty. The phantom chariot of Lord Petersham dashes down the slopenightly. Nightly Mr. Ball Hughes appears in the bow-window of White's. At cock-crow Charles James Fox still emerges from Brooks's. Such men asthese were indigenous to the street. Nothing will ever lay their ghoststhere. But the ghost of St. James--what should it do in that galley?. .. Of all the streets that have been named after famous men, I know butone whose namesake is suggested by it. In Regent Street you dosometimes think of the Regent; and that is not because the street isnamed after him, but because it was conceived by him, and was designedand built under his auspices, and is redolent of his character and histime. When a national hero is to be commemorated by a street, he mustbe allowed to design the street himself. The mere plastering-up of hisname is no mnemonic. 

ON SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY

My florist has standing orders to deliver early on the morning of thisday a chaplet of laurel. With it in my hand, I reach by a step-ladderthe nobly arched embrasure that is above my central book-case, andcrown there the marble brow of him whose name is the especial glory ofour literature--of all literature. The greater part of the morning isspent by me in contemplation of that brow, and in silent meditation. And, year by year, always there intrudes itself into this meditationthe hope that Shakespeare's name will, one day, be swept into oblivion. 

I am not--you will have perceived that I certainly am not--a'Baconian. ' So far as I have examined the evidence in the controversy, I do not feel myself tempted to secede from the side on which (rightly, inasmuch as it is the obviously authoritative side) every ignorantperson ranges himself. Even the hottest Baconian, filled with thestubbornest conviction, will, I fancy, admit in confidence that theutmost thing that could, at present, be said for his conclusions by ajudicial investigator is that they are 'not proven. ' To be convinced ofa thing without being able to establish it is the surest recipe formaking oneself ridiculous. The Baconians have thus made themselves veryridiculous; and that alone is reason enough for not wishing to jointhem. And yet my heart is with them, and my voice urges them to carryon the fight. It is a good fight, in my opinion, and I hope they willwin it. 

I do not at all understand the furious resentment they rouse in thebosoms of the majority. Mistaken they may be; but why yell them down asknavish blasphemers? Our reverence, after all, is given not to anElizabethan named William Shakespeare, who was born at Stratford, andmarried, and migrated to London, and became a second-rate actor, andafterwards returned to Stratford, and made a will, and composed a fewlines of doggerel for the tombstone under which he was buried. Ourreverence is given to the writer of certain plays and sonnets. To thatsecond-rate actor, because we believe he wrote those plays and sonnets, we give that reverence. But our belief is not such as we give to theproposition that one and two make three. It is a belief that has to beupheld by argument when it is assailed. When a man says to us that oneand two make four, we smile and are silent. But when he argues, pointby point, that in Bacon's life and writings there is nothing to showthat Bacon might not have written the plays and sonnets, and that thereis much to show that he did write them, and that in what we know aboutShakespeare there is little evidence that Shakespeare wrote thoseworks, and much evidence that he did not write them, then we pullourselves together, marshalling all our facts and all out literarydiscernment, so as to convince our interlocutor of his error. But whyshould we not do our task urbanely? The cyphers, certainly, are stupidand tedious things, deserving no patience. But the more intelligentBaconians spurn them as airily as do you or I. Our case is not sostrong that the arguments of these gentlemen can be ignored; andnaughty temper does but hamper us in the task of demolition. If Baconwere proved to have written Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, wouldmankind be robbed of one of those illusions which are necessary to itshappiness and welfare? If so, we have a good excuse for browbeating thepoor Baconians. But it isn't so, really and truly. 

Suppose that one fine morning, Mr. Blank, an ardent Baconian, stumbledacross some long-sought document which proved irrefragably that Baconwas the poet, and Shakespeare an impostor. What would be oursentiments? For the second-rate actor we should have not a moment'ssneaking kindness or pity. On the other hand, should we not experiencean everlasting thrill of pride and gladness in the thought that he whohad been the mightiest of our philosophers had been also, by someunimaginable grace of heaven, the mightiest of our poets? Our pleasurein the plays and sonnets would be, of course, not one whit greater thanit is now. But the pleasure of hero-worship for their author would bemore than reduplicated. The Greeks revelled in reverence of Heracles byreason of his twelve labours. They would have been disappointed had itbeen proved to them that six of those labours had been performed bysome quite obscure person. The divided reverence would have seemedtame. Conversely, it is pleasant to revere Bacon, as we do now, and torevere Shakespeare, as we do now; but a wildest ecstasy of worship wereours could we concentrate on one of those two demigods all thatreverence which now we apportion to each apart. 

It is for this reason, mainly, that I wish success to the Baconians. But there is another reason, less elevated perhaps, but not less strongfor me. I should like to watch the multifarious comedies which wouldspring from the downfall of an idol to which for three centuries awhole world had been kneeling. Glad fancy makes for me a few extractsfrom the issue of a morning paper dated a week after the publication ofMr. Blank's discovery. This from a column of Literary Notes:

From Baiham, Sydenham, Lewisham, Clapham, Herne Hill and Peckham comesnews that the local Shakespeare Societies have severally met anddecided to dissolve. Other suburbs are expected to follow. 

This from the same column:

Mr. Sidney Lee is now busily engaged on a revised edition of hismonumental biography of Shakespeare. Yesterday His Majesty the Kinggraciously visited Mr. Lee's library in order to personally inspect theprogress of the work, which, in its complete form, is awaited with thedeepest interest in all quarters. 

And this, a leaderette:

Yesterday at a meeting of the Parks Committee of the London CountyCouncil it was unanimously resolved to recommend at the next meeting ofthe Council that the statue of Shakespeare in Leicester Square shouldbe removed. This decision was arrived at in view of the fact thatduring the past few days the well-known effigy has been the centre ofrepeated disturbances, and is already considerably damaged. We aresurprised to learn that there are in our midst persons capable of doingviolence to a noble work of art merely because its subject isdistasteful to them. But even the most civilised communities have theirfits of vandalism. ''Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true. '

And this from a page of advertisements:

To be let or sold. A commodious and desirable Mansion atStratford-on-Avon. Delightful flower and kitchen gardens. Hot and coldwater on every floor. Within easy drive of station. Hitherto home ofMiss Marie Corelli. 

And this, again from the Literary Notes:

Mr. Hall Caine is in town. Yesterday, at the Authors' Club, he passedalmost unrecognised by his many friends, for he has shaved his beardand moustache, and has had his hair cropped quite closely to the head. This measure he has taken, he says, owing to the unusually hot weatherprevailing. 

A sonnet, too, printed in large type on the middle page, entitled 'ToShakespeare, ' signed by the latest fashionable poet, and beginning thus:

 O undetected during so long years, O irrepleviably infamous, Stand forth!

A cable, too, from 'Our Own Correspondent' in New York:

This afternoon the Carmania came into harbour. Among the passengers wasMr. J. Pierpont Morgan, who had come over in personal charge of AnneHathaway's Cottage, his purchase of which for L2, 000, 000 excited somuch attention on your side a few weeks ago. Mr. Blank's sensationalrevelations not having been published to the world till two days afterthe Carmania left Liverpool, the millionaire collector had, of course, no cognisance of the same. On disembarking he proceeded straight to theCustoms Office and inquired how much duty was to be imposed on thecottage. On being courteously informed that the article would be passedinto the country free of charge, he evinced considerable surprise. Ithen ventured to approach Mr. Morgan and to hand him a journalcontaining the cabled summary of Mr. Blank's disclosures, which heproceeded to peruse. His comments I must reserve for the next mail, thecable clerks here demurring to their transmission. 

Only a dream? But a sweet one. Bustle about, Baconians, and bring ittrue. Don't listen to my florist. 

A HOME-COMING

Belike, returning from a long pilgrimage, in which you have seen manystrange men and strange cities, and have had your imagination stirredby marvellous experiences, you have never, at the very end of yourjourney, almost in sight of your home, felt suddenly that all you hadbeen seeing and learning was as naught--a pack of negligible illusions, faint and forgotten. From me, however, this queer sensation has notbeen withheld. It befell me a few days ago; in a cold grey dawn, and inthe Buffet of Dover Harbour. 

I had spent two months far away, wandering and wondering; and now I hadjust fulfilled two thirds of the little tripartite journey from Paristo London. I was sleepy, as one always is after that brief and twicebroken slumber. I was chilly, for is not the dawn always bleak atDover, and perforated always with a bleak and drizzling rain? I wassad, for I had watched from the deck the white cliffs of Albion comingnearer and nearer to me, towering over me, and in the familiar drizzlelooking to me more than ever ghastly for that I had been so long and sofar away from them. Often though that harsh, chalky coast had thusborne down on me, I had never yet felt so exactly and lamentably like acriminal arrested on an extradition warrant. 

In its sleepy, chilly shell my soul was still shuddering andwhimpering. Piteously it conjured me not to take it back into thiscruel hum-drum. It rose up and fawned on me. 'Down, Sir, down!' said Isternly. I pointed out to it that needs must when the devil drives, andthat it ought to think itself a very lucky soul for having had twohappy, sunny months of fresh and curious adventure. 'A sorrow's crownof sorrow, ' it murmured, 'is remembering happier things. ' I declaredthe sentiment to be as untrue as was the quotation trite, and told mysoul that I looked keenly forward to the pleasure of writing, incollaboration with it, that book of travel for which I had been sosedulously amassing notes and photographs by the way. 

This colloquy was held at a table in the Buffet. I was sorry, for mysoul's sake, to be sitting there. Britannia owns nothing more crudelyand inalienably Britannic than her Buffets. The barmaids are butincarnations of her own self, thinly disguised. The stale buns and thestale sponge-cakes must have been baked, one fancies, by her own heavyhand. Of her everything is redolent. She it is that has cut the thickstale sandwiches, bottled the bitter beer, brewed the unpalatablecoffee. Cold and hungry though I was, one sip of this coffee was onesip too much for me. I would not mortify my body by drinking more ofit, although I had to mortify my soul by lingering over it till one ofthe harassed waiters would pause to be paid for it. I was somewhatcomforted by the aspect of my fellow-travellers at the surroundingtables. Dank, dishevelled, dismal, they seemed to be resenting as muchas I the return to the dear home-land. I suppose it was the contrastbetween them and him that made me stare so hard at the large young manwho was standing on the threshold and surveying the scene. 

He looked, as himself would undoubtedly have said, 'fit as a fiddle, 'or 'right as rain. ' His cheeks were rosy, his eyes sparkling. He hadhis arms akimbo, and his feet planted wide apart. His grey bowlerrested on the back of his head, to display a sleek coating of hairplastered down over his brow. In his white satin tie shone a dubiousbut large diamond, and there was the counter-attraction of geraniumsand maidenhair fern in his button-hole. So fresh was the nosegay thathe must have kept it in water during the passage! Or perhaps thesevegetables had absorbed by mere contact with his tweeds, the subtlesecret of his own immarcescibility. I remembered now that I had seenhim, without realising him, on the platform of the Gare du Nord. 'GayParee' was still written all over him. But evidently he was no repiner. 

Unaccountable though he was, I had no suspicion of what he was about todo. I think you will hardly believe me when I tell you what he did. 'Atraveller's tale' you will say, with a shrug. Yet I swear to you thatit is the plain and solemn truth. If you still doubt me, you have theexcuse that I myself hardly believed the evidence of my eyes. In theBuffet of Dover Harbour, in the cold grey dawn, in the brief intervalbetween boat and train, the large young man, shooting his cuffs, strodeforward, struck a confidential attitude across the counter, and beganto flirt with the barmaid. 

Open-mouthed, fascinated, appalled, I watched this monstrous andunimaginable procedure. I was not near enough to overhear what wassaid. But I knew by the respective attitudes that the time-honouredritual was being observed strictly by both parties. I could see the iceof haughty indifference thawing, little by little, under the fire ofgallant raillery. I could fix the exact moment when 'Indeed?' became 'Idaresay, ' and when 'Well, I must say' gave place to 'Go along, ' andwhen 'Oh, I don't mind you--not particularly' was succeeded by 'Whogave you them flowers?'. .. All in the cold grey dawn. .. 

The cry of 'Take your places, please!' startled me into realisationthat all the other passengers had vanished. I hurried away, leaving theyoung man still in the traditional attitude which he had assumed fromthe first--one elbow sprawling on the counter, one foot cocked over theother. My porter had put my things into a compartment exactly oppositethe door of the Buffet. I clambered in. 

Just as the guard blew his whistle, the young man or monster camehurrying out. He winked at me. I did not return his wink. 

I suppose I ought really to have raised my hat to him. Pre-eminently, he was one of those who have made England what it is. But they are thevery men whom one does not care to meet just after long truancy inpreferable lands. He was the backbone of the nation. But oughtbackbones to be exposed?

Though I would rather not have seen him then and there, I did realise, nevertheless, the overwhelming interest of him. I knew him to be astranger sight, a more memorable and instructive, than any of the fairsights I had been seeing. He made them all seem nebulous and unreal tome. Beside me lay my despatch-box. I unlocked it, drew from it all thenotes and all the photographs I had brought back with me. These, one byone, methodically, I tore up, throwing their fragments out of thewindow, not grudging them to the wind. 

'THE RAGGED REGIMENT'

--'commonly called "Longshanks" on account of his great height he wasthe first king crowned in the Abbey as it now appears and was interredwith great pomp on St. Simon's and St. Jude's Day October 28th 1307 in1774 the tomb was opened when the king's body was found almost entirein the right hand was a richly embossed sceptre and in the left'--

So much I gather as I pass one of the tombs on my way to the Chapel ofAbbot Islip. Anon the verger will have stepped briskly forward, drawinga deep breath, with his flock well to heel, and will be telling thesecrets of the next tomb on his tragic beat. 

To be a verger in Westminster Abbey--what life could be moreunutterably tragic? We are, all of us, more or less enslaved tosameness; but not all of us are saying, every day, hour after hour, exactly the same thing, in exactly the same place, in exactly the sametone of voice, to people who hear it for the first time and receive itwith a gasp of respectful interest. In the name of humanity, I suggestto the Dean and Chapter that they should relieve these sad-faced men oftheir intolerable mission, and purchase parrots. On every tomb, byevery bust or statue, under every memorial window, let a parrot bechained by the ankle to a comfortable perch, therefrom to enlighten therustic and the foreigner. There can be no objection on the ground ofexpense; for parrots live long. Vergers do not, I am sure. 

It is only the rustic and the foreigner who go to Westminster Abbey forgeneral enlightenment. If you pause beside any one of the verger-ledgroups, and analyse the murmur emitted whenever the verger has said hissay, you will find the constituent parts of the sound to be suchphrases as 'Lor!' 'Ach so!' 'Deary me!' 'Tiens!' and 'My!' 'My!'preponderates; for antiquities appeal with greatest force to the onerace that has none of them; and it is ever the Americans who hang themost tenaciously, in the greatest numbers, on the vergers' tired lips. We of the elder races are capable of taking antiquities as a matter ofcourse. Certainly, such of us as reside in London take WestminsterAbbey as a matter of course. A few of us will be buried in it, butmeanwhile we don't go to it, even as we don't go to the Tower, or theMint, or the Monument. Only for some special purpose do we go--as tohear a sensational bishop preaching, or to see a monarch anointed. Andon these rare occasions we cast but a casual glance at the Abbey--thatclose-packed chaos of beautiful things and worthless vulgar things. That the Abbey should be thus chaotic does not seem strange to us; forlack of orderliness and discrimination is an essential characteristicof the English genius. But to the Frenchman, with his passion forsymmetry and harmony, how very strange it must all seem! How verywhole-hearted a generalising 'Tiens! must he utter when he leaves theedifice!

My own special purpose in coming is to see certain old waxen effigiesthat are here. [In its original form this essay had the good fortune toaccompany two very romantic drawings by William Nicholson--one of QueenElizabeth's effigy, the other of Charles II. 's. ] A key grates in thelock of a little door in the wall of (what I am told is) the NorthAmbulatory; and up a winding wooden staircase I am ushered into a tinypaven chamber. The light is dim, through the deeply embrased and narrowwindow, and the space is so obstructed that I must pick my way warily. All around are deep wooden cupboards, faced with glass; and I becomedimly aware that through each glass some one is watching me. Likesentinels in sentry-boxes, they fix me with their eyes, seeming asthough they would challenge me. How shall I account to them for mypresence? I slip my note-book into my pocket, and try, in the dimlight, to look as unlike a spy as possible. But I cannot, try as Iwill, acquit myself of impertinence. Who am I that I should review this'ragged regiment'? Who am I that I should come peering in upon thissecret conclave of the august dead? Immobile and dark, very gaunt andwithered, these personages peer out at me with a malign dignity, through the ages which separate me from them, through the twilight inwhich I am so near to them. Their eyes. .. Come, sir, their eyes aremade of glass. It is quite absurd to take wax-works seriously. Wax-works are not a serious form of art. The aim of art is so toimitate life as to produce in the spectator an illusion of life. Wax-works, at best, can produce no such illusion. Don't pretend to beilluded. For its power to illude, an art depends on its limitations. Art never can be life, but it may seem to be so if it do but keep farenough away from life. A statue may seem to live. A painting may seemto live. That is because each is so far away from life that you do notapply the test of life to it. A statue is of bronze or marble, thaneither of which nothing could be less flesh-like. A painting is a thingin two dimensions, whereas man is in three. If sculptor or paintertried to dodge these conventions, his labour would be undone. If apainter swelled his canvas out and in according to the convexities andconcavities of his model, or if a sculptor overlaid his material withauthentic flesh-tints, then you would demand that the painted orsculptured figure should blink, or stroke its chin, or kick its foot inthe air. That it could do none of these things would rob it of allpower to illude you. An art that challenges life at close quarters isdefeated through the simple fact that it is not life. Wax-works, beingso near to life, having the exact proportions of men and women, havingthe exact texture of skin and hair and habiliments, must either be madeanimate or continue to be grotesque and pitiful failures. Lifelike?They? Rather do they give you the illusion of death. They are akin tophotographs seen through stereoscopic lenses--those photographs ofpersons who seem horribly to be corpses, or, at least, catalepts;and. .. You see, I have failed to cheer myself up. Having taken up astrong academic line, and set bravely out to prove to myself theabsurdity of wax-works, I find myself at the point where I started, irrefutably arguing to myself that I have good reason to be frightened, here in the Chapel of Abbot Islip, in the midst of these, the Abbot'sglowering and ghastly tenants. Catalepsy! death! that is the atmosphereI am breathing. 

If I were writing in the past tense, I might pause here to considerwhether this emotion was a genuine one or a mere figment for literaryeffect. As I am writing in the present tense, such a pause would beinartistic, and shall not be made. I must seem not to be writing, butto be actually on the spot, suffering. But then, you may well ask, whyshould I stay here, to suffer? why not beat a hasty retreat? The answeris that my essay would then seem skimpy; and that you, moreover, wouldknow hardly anything about the wax-works. So I must ask you to imagineme fighting down my fears, and consoling myself with the reflectionthat here, after all, a sense of awe and oppression is just what oneought to feel--just what one comes for. At Madame Tussaud's exhibition, by which I was similarly afflicted some years ago, I had no suchconsolation. There my sense of fitness was outraged. The place wasmeant to be cheerful. It was brilliantly lit. A band was playingpopular tunes. Downstairs there was even a restaurant. (Let fancyfondly dwell, for a moment, on the thought of a dinner at MadameTussaud's: a few carefully-selected guests, and a menu well thoughtout; conversation becoming general; corks popping; quips flying; asense of bien-etre; 'thank you for a most delightful evening. ')Madame's figures were meant to be agreeable and lively presentments. Her visitors were meant to have a thoroughly good time. But the IslipChapel has no cheerful intent. It is, indeed, a place set aside, withall reverence, to preserve certain relics of a grim, yet not unlovely, old custom. These fearful images are no stock-in-trade of a showman; weare not invited to 'walk-up' to them. They were fashioned with a solemnand wistful purpose. The reason of them lies in a sentiment which is asold as the world--lies in man's vain revolt from the prospect of death. If the soul must perish from the body, may not at least the body itselfbe preserved, somewhat in the semblance of life, and, for at least awhile, on the face of the earth? By subtle art, with far-fetchedspices, let the body survive its day and be (even though hidden beneaththe earth) for ever. Nay more, since death cause it straightway todwindle somewhat from the true semblance of life, let cunningartificers fashion it anew--fashion it as it was. Thus, in the earliestdays of England, the kings, as they died, were embalmed, and theirbodies were borne aloft upon their biers, to a sepulture long delayedafter death. In later days, an image of every king that died wasforthwith carved in wood, and painted according to his rememberedaspect, and decked in his own robes; and, when they had sealed histomb, the mourners, humouring, to the best of their power, his hatredof extinction, laid this image upon the tomb's slab, and left it so. Inyet later days, the pretence became more realistic. The hands and theface were modelled in wax; and the figure stood upright, in somecommanding posture, on a valanced platform above the tomb. Nor wereonly the kings thus honoured. Every one who was interred in the Abbey, whether in virtue of lineage or of achievements, was honoured thus. Itwas the fashion for every great lady to write in her will minuteinstructions as to the posture in which her image was to be modelled, and which of her gowns it was to be clad in, and with what of herjewellery it was to glitter. Men, too, used to indulge in suchprecautions. Of all the images thus erected in the Abbey, there remainbut a few. The images had to take their chance, in days that werewithout benefit of police. Thieves, we may suppose, stripped the fineryfrom many of them. Rebels, we know, broke in, less ignobly, and toremany of them limb from limb, as a protest against the governingclasses. So only a poor remnant, a 'ragged regiment, ' has been rallied, at length, into the sanctuary of Islip's Chapel. Perhaps, if they werenot so few, these images would not be so fascinating. 

Yes, I am fascinated by them now. Terror has been toned to wonder. I amfilled with a kind of wondering pity. My academic theory aboutwax-works has broken down utterly. These figures--kings, princes, duchesses, queens--all are real to me now, and all are infinitelypathetic, in the dignity of their fallen and forgotten greatness. Withwhat inalienable majesty they wear their rusty velvets and faded silks, flaunting sere ruffles of point-lace, which at a touch now would beshivered like cobwebs! My heart goes out to them through the glass thatdivides us. I wish I could stay with them, bear them company, always. Ithink they like me. I am afraid they will miss me. Perhaps it would bebetter for us never to have met. Even Queen Elizabeth, beholding whom, as she stands here, gaunt and imperious and appalling, I echo the wordsspoken by Philip's envoy, 'This woman is possessed of a hundredthousand devils'--even she herself, though she gazes askance into theair, seems to be conscious of my presence, and to be willing me tostay. It is a relief to meet the friendly bourgeois eye of good QueenAnne. It has restored my common sense. 'These figures really are mostcurious, most interesting. .. ' and anon I am asking intelligentquestions about the contents of a big press, which, by special favour, has been unlocked for me. 

Perhaps the most romantic thing in the Islip Chapel is this press. Herein, huddled one against another in dark recesses, lie the batteredand disjected remains of the earlier effigies--the primitive woodenones. Edward I. And Eleanor are known to be among them; and Henry VII. And Elizabeth of York; and others not less illustrious. Which is which?By size and shape you can distinguish the men from the women; butbeyond that is mere guesswork, be you never so expert. Time has brokenand shuffled these erst so significant effigies till they have becomeas unmeaning for us as the bones in one of the old plague-pits. I feelthat I ought to be more deeply moved than I am by this sad state ofthings. But I seem to have exhausted my capacity for sentiment; and Icannot rise to the level of my opportunity. Would that I wereThackeray! Dear gentleman, how promptly and copiously he would havewept and moralised here, in his grandest manner, with that perfecttechnical mastery which makes even now his tritest and shallowestsermons sound remarkable, his hollowest sentiment ring true! What apity he never came to beat the muffled drum, on which he was so supremea performer, around the Islip Chapel! As I make my way down the stairs, I am trying to imagine what would have been the cadence of the finalsentence in this essay by Thackeray. And, as I pass along the NorthAmbulatory, lo! there is the same verger with a new party; and I catchthe words 'was interred with great pomp on St. Simon's and St. Jude'sDay October 28 1307 in 1774 the tomb was opened when--

THE HUMOUR OF THE PUBLIC

They often tell me that So-and-so has no sense of humour. Lack of thissense is everywhere held to be a horrid disgrace, nullifying any numberof delightful qualities. Perhaps the most effective means ofdisparaging an enemy is to lay stress on his integrity, his erudition, his amiability, his courage, the fineness of his head, the grace of hisfigure, his strength of purpose, which has overleaped all obstacles, his goodness to his parents, the kind word that he has for every one, his musical voice, his freedom from aught that in human nature is base;and then to say what a pity it is that he has no sense of humour. Themore highly you extol any one, the more eagerly will your audienceaccept anything you may have to say against him. Perfection is unlovedin this imperfect world, but for imperfection comes instant sympathy. Any excuse is good enough for exalting the bad or stupid brother of us, but any stick is a valued weapon against him who has the effrontery tohave been by Heaven better graced than we. And what could match fordeadliness the imputation of being without sense of humour? To convicta man of that lack is to strike him with one blow to a level with thebeasts of the field--to kick him, once and for all, outside the humanpale. What is it that mainly distinguishes us from the brute creation?That we walk erect? Some brutes are bipeds. That we do not slay oneanother? We do. That we build houses? So do they. That we remember andreason? So, again, do they. That we converse? They are chatterboxes, whose lingo we are not sharp enough to master. On no possible point ofsuperiority can we preen ourselves save this: that we can laugh, andthat they, with one notable exception, cannot. They (so, at least, weassert) have no sense of humour. We have. Away with any one of us whohasn't!

Belief in the general humorousness of the human race is the moredeep-rooted for that every man is certain that he himself is notwithout sense of humour. A man will admit cheerfully that he does notknow one tune from another, or that he cannot discriminate the vintagesof wines. The blind beggar does not seek to benumb sympathy by tellinghis patrons how well they are looking. The deaf and dumb do not scrupleto converse in signals. 'Have you no sense of beauty?' I said to afriend who in the Accademia of Florence suggested that we had stoodlong enough in front of the 'Primavera. ' 'No!' was his simple, straightforward, quite unanswerable answer. But I have never heard aman assert that he had no sense of humour. And I take it that no suchassertion ever was made. Moreover, were it made, it would be a lie. Every man laughs. Frequently or infrequently, the corners of his mouthare drawn up into his cheeks, and through his parted lips comes his ownparticular variety, soft or loud, of that noise which is calledlaughter. Frequently or infrequently, every man is amused by something. Every man has a sense of humour, but not every man the same sense. Amay be incapable of smiling at what has convulsed B, and B may stareblankly when he hears what has rolled A off his chair. Jokes are sodiverse that no one man can see them all. The very fact that he can seeone kind is proof positive that certain other kinds will be invisibleto him. And so egoistic in his judgment is the average man that he isapt to suspect of being humourless any one whose sense of humoursquares not with his own. But the suspicion is always false, incomparably useful though it is in the form of an accusation. 

Having no love for the public, I have often accused that body of havingno sense of humour. Conscience pricks me to atonement. Let me withdrawmy oft-made imputation, and show its hollowness by examining with you, reader (who are, of course, no more a member of the public than I am), what are the main features of that sense of humour which the publicdoes undoubtedly possess. 

The word 'public' must, like all collective words, be used withcaution. When we speak of our hair, we should remember not only thatthe hairs on our heads are all numbered, but also that there is acatalogue raisonne' in which every one of those hairs is shown to be insome respect unique. Similarly, let us not forget that 'public' denotesa collection not of identical units, but of units separable and (underclose scrutiny) distinguishable one from another. I have said that notevery man has the same sense of humour. I might have said truly that notwo men have the same sense of humour, for that no two men have thesame brain and heart and experience, by which things the sense ofhumour is formed and directed. One joke may go round the world, tickling myriads, but not two persons will be tickled in precisely thesame way, to precisely the same degree. If the vibrations of inward oroutward laughter could be (as some day, perhaps, they will be)scientifically registered, differences between them all would be madeapparent to us. 'Oh, ' is your cry, whenever you hear something thatespecially amuses you, 'I must tell that to' whomever you credit with asense of humour most akin to your own. And the chances are that youwill be disappointed by his reception of the joke. Either he will laughless loudly than you hoped, or he will say something which reveals toyou that it amuses him and you not in quite the same way. Or perhaps hewill laugh so long and loudly that you are irritated by the suspicionthat you have not yourself gauged the full beauty of it. In one of hisbooks (I do not remember which, though they, too, I suppose, are allnumbered) Mr. Andrew Lang tells a story that has always delighted andalways will delight me. He was in a railway-carriage, and histravelling-companions were two strangers, two silent ladies, middle-aged. The train stopped at Nuneaton. The two ladies exchanged aglance. One of them sighed, and said, 'Poor Eliza! She had reason toremember Nuneaton!'. .. That is all. But how much! how deliciously andmemorably much! How infinite a span of conjecture is in those dotswhich I have just made! And yet, would you believe me? some of my mostintimate friends, the people most like to myself, see little or nothingof the loveliness of that pearl of price. Perhaps you would believe me. That is the worst of it: one never knows. The most sensitiveintelligence cannot predict how will be appraised its any treasure byits how near soever kin. 

This sentence, which I admit to be somewhat mannered, has the merit ofbringing me straight to the point at which I have been aiming; that, though the public is composed of distinct units, it may roughly beregarded as a single entity. Precisely because you and I have sensitiveintelligences, we cannot postulate certainly anything about each other. The higher an animal be in grade, the more numerous and recondite arethe points in which its organism differs from that of its peers. Thelower the grade, the more numerous and obvious the points of likeness. By 'the public' I mean that vast number of human animals who are in thelowest grade of intelligence. (Of course, this classification is madewithout reference to social 'classes. ' The public is recruited from theupper, the middle, and the lower class. That the recruits come mostlyfrom the lower class is because the lower class is still the leastwell-educated. That they come in as high proportion from the middleclass as from the less well-educated upper class, is because the 'youngBarbarians, ' reared in a more gracious environment, often acquire agrace of mind which serves them as well as would mental keenness. )Whereas in the highest grade, to which you and I belong, the fact thata thing affects you in one way is no guarantee that it will not affectme in another, a thing which affects one man of the lowest grade in aparticular way is likely to affect all the rest very similarly. Thepublic's sense of humour may be regarded roughly as one collectivesense. 

It would be impossible for any one of us to define what are the thingsthat amuse him. For him the wind of humour bloweth where it listeth. Hefinds his jokes in the unlikeliest places. Indeed, it is only therethat he finds them at all. A thing that is labelled 'comic' chills hissense of humour instantly--perceptibly lengthens his face. A joke thathas not a serious background, or some serious connexion, means nothingto him. Nothing to him, the crude jape of the professional jester. Nothing to him, the jangle of the bells in the wagged cap, the thud ofthe swung bladder. Nothing, the joke that hits him violently in theeye, or pricks him with a sharp point. The jokes that he loves arethose quiet jokes which have no apparent point--the jokes which nevercan surrender their secret, and so can never pall. His humour is anindistinguishable part of his soul, and the things that stir it areindistinguishable from the world around him. But to the primitive anduntutored public, humour is a harshly definite affair. The public canachieve no delicate process of discernment in humour. Unless a jokehits in the eye, drawing forth a shower of illuminative sparks, all isdarkness. Unless a joke be labelled 'Comic. Come! why don't you laugh?'the public is quite silent. Violence and obviousness are thus theessential factors. The surest way of making a thing obvious is toprovide it in some special place, at some special time. It is thus thathumour is provided for the public, and thus that it is easy for thestudent to lay his hand on materials for an analysis of the public'ssense of humour. The obviously right plan for the student is to visitthe music-halls from time to time, and to buy the comic papers. Neitherthese halls nor these papers will amuse him directly through their art, but he will instruct himself quicklier and soundlier from them thanfrom any other source, for they are the authentic sources of thepublic's laughter. Let him hasten to patronise them. 

He will find that I have been there before him. The music-halls I haveknown for many years. I mean, of course, the real old-fashionedmusic-halls, not those depressing palaces where you see by grace of abiograph things that you have seen much better, and without a headache, in the street, and pitiable animals being forced to do things whichNature has forbidden them to do--things which we can do so very muchbetter than they, without any trouble. Heaven defend me from thosemeaningless palaces! But the little old music-halls have alwaysattracted me by their unpretentious raciness, their quaint monotony, the reality of the enjoyment on all those stolidly rapt faces in theaudience. Without that monotony there would not be the same air ofgeneral enjoyment, the same constant guffaws. That monotony is thesecret of the success of music-halls. It is not enough for the publicto know that everything is meant to be funny, that laughter is cravedfor every point in every 'turn. ' A new kind of humour, however obviousand violent, might take the public unawares, and be received insilence. The public prefers always that the old well-tested andwell-seasoned jokes be cracked for it. Or rather, not the same oldjokes, but jokes on the same old subjects. The quality of the joke isof slight import in comparison with its subject. It is the matter, rather than the treatment, that counts, in the art of the music-hall. Some subjects have come to be recognised as funny. Two or three of themcrop up in every song, and before the close of the evening all of themwill have cropped up many times. I speak with authority, as an earneststudent of the music-halls. Of comic papers I know less. They havenever allured me. They are not set to music--an art for whose cheaperand more primitive forms I have a very real sensibility; and I am not, as I peruse one of them, privy to the public's delight: my copy cannotbe shared with me by hundreds of people whose mirth is wonderful to seeand hear. And the bare contents are not such as to enchant me. However, for the purpose of this essay, I did go to a bookstall and buy as manyof these papers as I could see--a terrific number, a terrific burden tostagger away with. 

I have gone steadily through them, one by one. My main impression is ofwonder and horror at the amount of hebdomadal labour implicit in them. Who writes for them? Who does the drawings for them--those thousands oflittle drawings, week by week, so neatly executed? To think that dailyand nightly, in so many an English home, in a room sacred to theartist, sits a young man inventing and executing designs for ChippySnips! To think how many a proud mother must be boasting to herfriends: 'Yes, Edward is doing wonderfully well--more than fulfillingthe hopes we always had of him. Did I tell you that the editor of NattyTips has written asking him to contribute to his paper? I believe Ihave the letter on me. Yes, here it is, ' etc. , etc. ! The awful thing isthat many of the drawings in these comic papers are done with very realskill. Nothing is sadder than to see the hand of an artist wasted byalliance to a vacant mind, a common spirit. I look through thesedrawings, conceived all so tritely and stupidly, so hopelessly andhelplessly, yet executed--many of them--so very well indeed, and I sighover the haphazard way in which mankind is made. However, my concern isnot with the tragedy of these draughtsmen, but with the specific formstaken by their humour. Some of them deal in a broad spirit with theworld-comedy, limiting themselves to no set of funny subjects, findinginspiration in the habits and manners of men and women at large. 'HEWON HER' is the title appended to a picture of a young lady andgentleman seated in a drawing-room, and the libretto runs thus: 'Mabel:Last night I dreamt of a most beautiful woman. Harold: Rather acoincidence. I dreamt of you, too, last night. ' I have selected this asa typical example of the larger style. This style, however, occupiesbut a small space in the bulk of the papers that lie before me. As inthe music-halls, so in these papers, the entertainment consists almostentirely of variations on certain ever-recurring themes. I have been atpains to draw up a list of these themes. I think it is exhaustive. Ifany fellow-student detect an omission, let him communicate with me. Meanwhile, here is my list:--

 Mothers-in-law Hen-pecked husbands Twins Old maids Jews Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Niggers (not Russians, or other foreigners of any denomination) Fatness Thinness Long hair (worn by a man) Baldness Sea-sickness Stuttering Bad cheese 'Shooting the moon' (slang expression for leaving a lodging-house without paying the bill). 

You might argue that one week's budget of comic papers is no realcriterion--that the recurrence of these themes may be fortuitous. Myanswer to that objection is that this list coincides exactly with alist which (before studying these papers) I had made of the themescommonest, during the past few years, in the music-halls. This twinlist, which results from separate study of the two chief forms ofpublic entertainment, may be taken as a sure guide to the goal of ourinquiry. 

Let us try to find some unifying principle, or principles, among thevariegated items. Take the first item--Mothers-in-law. Why should thepublic roar, as roar it does, at the mere mention of that relationship?There is nothing intrinsically absurd in the notion of a woman with amarried daughter. It is probable that she will sympathise with herdaughter in any quarrel that may arise between husband and wife. It isprobable, also, that she will, as a mother, demand for her daughtermore unselfish devotion than the daughter herself expects. But thisdoes not make her ridiculous. The public laughs not at her, surely. Italways respects a tyrant. It laughs at the implied concept of theoppressed son-in-law, who has to wage unequal warfare against twowomen. It is amused by the notion of his embarrassment. It is amused bysuffering. This explanation covers, of course, the second item on mylist--Hen-pecked husbands. It covers, also, the third and fourth items. The public is amused by the notion of a needy man put to doubleexpense, and of a woman who has had no chance of fulfilling herdestiny. The laughter at Jews, too, may be a survival of the oldJew-baiting spirit (though one would have thought that even the Britishpublic must have begun to realise, and to reflect gloomily, that thewhirligig of time has so far revolved as to enable the Jews to bait theGentiles). Or this laughter may be explained by the fact which alonecan explain why the public laughs at Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Niggers. Jews, after all, are foreigners, strangers. The British publichas never got used to them, to their faces and tricks of speech. Theonly apparent reason why it laughs at the notion of Frenchmen, etc. , isthat they are unlike itself. (At the mention of Russians and otherforeigners it does not laugh, because it has no idea what they arelike: it has seen too few samples of them. )

So far, then, we have found two elements in the public's humour:delight in suffering, contempt for the unfamiliar. The former motive isthe more potent. It accounts for the popularity of all these otheritems: extreme fatness, extreme thinness, baldness, sea-sickness, stuttering, and (as entailing distress for the landlady) 'shooting themoon. ' The motive of contempt for the unfamiliar accounts for long hair(worn by a man). Remains one item unexplained. How can mirth possiblybe evoked by the notion of bad cheese? Having racked my brains for thesolution, I can but conjecture that it must be the mere ugliness of thething. Why any one should be amused by mere ugliness I cannot conceive. Delight in cruelty, contempt for the unfamiliar, I can understand, though I cannot admire them. They are invariable elements in children'ssense of humour, and it is natural that the public, as beingunsophisticated, should laugh as children laugh. But any nurse willtell you that children are frightened by ugliness. Why, then, is thepublic amused by it? I know not. The laughter at bad cheese I abandonas a mystery. I pitch it among such other insoluble problems, as Whydoes the public laugh when an actor and actress in a quite serious playkiss each other? Why does it laugh when a meal is eaten on the stage?Why does it laugh when any actor has to say 'damn'?

If they cannot be solved soon, such problems never will be solved. ForMr. Forster's Act will soon have had time to make apparent its effects;and the public will proudly display a sense of humour as sophisticatedas our own. 

DULCEDO JUDICIORUM

When a 'sensational' case is being tried, the court is well filled bylay persons in need of a thrill. Their presence seems to be ratherresented as a note of frivolity, a discord in the solemnity of thefunction, even a possible distraction for the judge and jury. I am nota lawyer, nor a professionally solemn person, and I cannot work myselfup into a state of indignation against the interlopers. I am, indeed, one of them myself. And I am worse than one of them. I do not merely goto this or that court on this or that special occasion. I frequent thecourts whenever I have nothing better to do. And it is rarely that, asone who cares to study his fellow-creatures, I have anything better todo. I greatly wonder that the courts are frequented by so few otherpeople who have no special business there. 

I can understand the glamour of the theatre. You find yourself in aqueerly-shaped place, cut off from the world, with plenty of gildingand red velvet or blue satin. An orchestra plays tunes calculated topromote suppressed excitement. Presently up goes a curtain, revealingto you a mimic world, with ladies and gentlemen painted and padded toappear different from what they are. It is precisely the people mostsusceptible to the glamour of the theatre who are the greatesthindrances to serious dramatic art. They will stand anything, no matterhow silly, in a theatre. Fortunately, there seems to be a decline inthe number of people who are acutely susceptible to the theatre'sglamour. I rather think the reason for this is that the theatre hasbeen over-exploited by the press. Quite old people will describe to youtheir early playgoings with a sense of wonder, an enthusiasm, which--leaving a wide margin for the charm that past things must alwayshave--will not be possible to us when we babble to our grandchildren. Quite young people, people ranging between the ages of four and five, who have seen but one or two pantomimes, still seem to have the glamourof the theatre full on them. But adolescents, and people in the primeof life, do merely, for the most part, grumble about the quality of theplays. Yet the plays of our time are somewhat better than the playsthat were written for our elders. Certainly the glamour of the theatrehas waned. And so much the better for the drama's future. 

It is a matter of concern, that future, to me who have for so long atime been a dramatic critic. A man soon comes to care, quiteunselfishly, about the welfare of the thing in which he hasspecialised. Of course, I care selfishly too. For, though it is just aseasy for a critic to write interestingly about bad things as about goodthings, he would rather, for choice, be in contact with good things. Itis always nice to combine business and pleasure. But one regrets, eventhen, the business. If I were a forensic critic, my delight inattending the courts would still be great; but less than it is in myirresponsibility. In the courts I find satisfied in me just thosesenses which in the theatre, nearly always, are starved. Nay, I findthem satisfied more fully than they ever could be, at best, in anytheatre. I do not merely fall back on the courts, in disgust of thetheatre as it is. I love the courts better than the theatre as itideally might be. And, I say again, I marvel that you leave me so muchelbow-room there. 

No artificial light is needed, no scraping of fiddles, to excite orcharm me as I pass from the echoing corridor, through the swing-doors, into the well of this or that court. It matters not much to me whatcase I shall hear, so it be of the human kind, with a jury and withwitnesses. I care little for Chancery cases. There is a certainintellectual pleasure in hearing a mass of facts subtly wrangled over. The mind derives therefrom something of the satisfaction that the eyehas in watching acrobats in a music-hall. One wonders at the ingenuity, the agility, the perfect training. Like acrobats, these Chancerylawyers are a relief from the average troupe of actors and actresses, by reason of their exquisite alertness, their thorough mastery(seemingly exquisite and thorough, at any rate, to the dazzled layman). And they have a further advantage in their material. The facts theydeal with are usually dull, but seldom so dull as facts become throughthe fancies of the average playwright. It is seldom that an evening ina theatre can be so pleasantly and profitably spent as a day in aChancery court. But it is ever into one or another of the courts ofKing's Bench that I betake myself, for choice. Criminal trials, ofwhich I have seen a few, I now eschew absolutely. I cannot stomachthem. I know that it is necessary for the good of the community thatsuch persons as infringe that community's laws should be punished. But, even were the mode of punishment less barbarous than it is, I shouldstill prefer not to be brought in sight of a prisoner in the dock. Perhaps because I have not a strongly developed imagination, I havelittle or no public spirit. I cannot see the commonweal. On the otherhand, I have plenty of personal feeling. And I have enough knowledge ofmen and women to know that very often the best people are guilty of theworst things. Is the prisoner in the dock guilty or not guilty of theoffence with which he is charged? That is the question in the mind ofthe court. What sort of man is he? That is the question in my own mind. And the answer to the other question has no bearing whatsoever on theanswer to this one. The English law assumes the prisoner innocent untilhe shall have been proved guilty. And, seeing him there a prisoner, aman who happens to have been caught, while others (myself included) arepleasantly at large after doing, unbeknown, innumerable deeds worse inthe eyes of heaven than the deed with which this man is charged--deedsthat do not prevent us from regarding our characters as quite finereally--I cannot but follow in my heart the example of the English lawand assume (pending proof, which cannot be forthcoming) that theprisoner in the dock has a character at any rate as fine as my own. Thewar that this assumption wages in my breast against the fact that theman will perhaps be sentenced is too violent a war not to discommodeme. Let justice be done. Or rather, let our rough-and-ready, well-meantendeavours towards justice go on being made. But I won't be there tosee, thank you very much. 

It is the natural wish of every writer to be liked by his readers. Buthow exasperating, how detestable, the writer who obviously touts forour affection, arranging himself for us in a mellow light, and invitingus, with gentle persistence, to note how lovable he is! Many essayistshave made themselves quite impossible through their determination toremind us of Charles Lamb--'St. Charles, ' as they invariably call him. And the foregoing paragraph, though not at all would-be-Lamb-like inexpression, looks to me horribly like a blatant bid for your love. Ihasten to add, therefore, that no absolutely kind-hearted person couldbear, as I rejoice, to go and hear cases even in the civil courts. Ifit be true that the instinct of cruelty is at the root of our pleasurein theatrical drama, how much more is there of savagery in our going tolook on at the throes of actual litigation--real men and womenstruggling not in make-believe, but in dreadful earnest! I mention thisaspect merely as a corrective to what I had written. I do not pretendthat I am ever conscious, as I enter a court, that I am come to gratifyan evil instinct. I am but conscious of being glad to be there, ontiptoe of anticipation, whether it be to hear tried some particularcase of whose matter I know already something, or to hear at hazardwhatever case happen to be down for hearing. I never tire of the aspectof a court, the ways of a court. Familiarity does but spice them. Ilove the cold comfort of the pale oak panelling, thescurrying-in-and-out of lawyers' clerks, the eagerness and ominousnessof it all, the rustle of silk as a K. C. Edges his way to his seat andtwists his head round for a quick whispered parley with his junior, while his client, at the solicitors' table, twists his head round towatch feverishly the quick mechanical nods of the great man's wig--thewig that covers the skull that contains the brain that so awfully muchdepends on. I love the mystery of those dark-green curtains behind theexalted Bench. One of them will anon be plucked aside, with astentorian 'Silence!' Thereat up we jump, all of us as though worked byone spring; and in shuffles swiftly My Lord, in a robe well-fashionedfor sitting in, but not for walking in anywhere except to a bath-room. He bows, and we bow; subsides, and we subside; and up jumps somegrizzled junior--'My Lord, may I mention to your Lordship the case of"Brown v. Robinson and Another"?' It is music to me ever, the cadenceof that formula. I watch the judge as he listens to the application, peering over his glasses with the lack-lustre eyes that judges have, eyes that stare dimly out through the mask of wax or parchment thatjudges wear. My Lord might be the mummy of some high tyrant revitalisedafter centuries of death and resuming now his sway over men. Impassivehe sits, aloof and aloft, ramparted by his desk, ensconced betweencurtains to keep out the draught--for might not a puff of wind scatterthe animated dust that he consists of? No creature of flesh and bloodcould impress us quite as he does, with a sense of puissance quite sodispassionate, so supernal. He crouches over us in such manner that weare all of us levelled one with another, shorn of aught that elsewheredifferentiates us. The silk-gownsmen, as soon as he appears, fade tothe semblance of juniors, of lawyers' clerks, of jurymen, of oneself. Always, indeed, in any public place devoted to some special purpose, one finds it hard to differentiate the visitors, hard to credit themwith any private existence. Cast your eye around the tables of a cafe':how subtly similar all the people seem! How like a swarm of gregariousinsects, in their unity of purpose and of aspect! Above all, howhomeless! Cast your eye around the tables of a casino's gambling-room. What an uniform and abject herd, huddled together with one despondentimpulse! Here and there, maybe, a person whom we know to be vastlyrich; yet we cannot conceive his calm as not the calm of inwarddesperation; cannot conceive that he has anything to bless himself withexcept the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from hisbreast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisiblepresence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presenceof the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener sense oflowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible symbol of themajesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath him. And when Isay 'him' I include the whole judicial bench. Judges vary, no doubt. Some are young, others old, by the calendar. But the old ones have anair of physical incorruptibility--are 'well-preserved, ' as by swathesand spices; and the young ones are just as mummified as they. Some ofthem are pleased to crack jokes; jokes of the sarcophagus, that twistour lips to obsequious laughter, but send a chill through our souls. There are 'strong' judges and weak ones (so barristers will tell you). Perhaps--who knows?--Minos was a strong judge, and Aeacus andRhadamanthus were weak ones. But all three seem equally terrible to us. And so seem, in virtue of their position, and of the manner and aspectit invests them with, all the judges of our own high courts. 

I hearken in awe to the toneless murmur in which My Lord comments onthe application in the case of 'Brown v. Robinson and Another. ' He sayssomething about the Court of Crown Cases Reserved. .. Ah, what place onthis earth bears a name so mystically majestic? Even in the commonestforensic phrases there is often this solemnity of cadence, always aquaintness, that stirs the imagination. .. The grizzled junior daresinterject something 'with submission, ' and is finally advised to see'my learned brother in chambers. ' 'As your Lordship pleases. '. .. Wepass to the business of the day. I settle myself to enjoy the keenestform of aesthetic pleasure that is known to me. 

Aesthetic, yes. In the law-courts one finds an art-form, as surely asin the theatre. What is drama? Its theme is the actions of certainopposed persons, historical or imagined, within a certain period oftime; and these actions, these characters, must be shown to us in asuccinct manner, must be so arranged that we know just what in them isessential to our understanding of them. Very similar is the art-formpractised in the law-courts. The theme of a law-suit is the actions ofcertain actual opposed persons within a certain period of time; andthese actions, these characters, must be set forth succinctly, insuch-wise that we shall know just as much as is essential to ourunderstanding of them. In drama, the presentment is, in a sense, morevivid. It is not--not usually, at least--retrospective. We see theactions being committed, hear the words as they are uttered. But howoften do we have an illusion of their reality? Seldom. It is seldomthat a masterpiece in drama is performed perfectly by an ideal cast. Ina law-court, on the other hand, it is always in perfect form that thematter is presented to us. First the outline of the story, in thespeech for the plaintiff; then this outline filled in by theexamination of the plaintiff himself; then the other side of the storyadumbrated by his cross-examination. Think of the various furtherstages of a law-suit, culminating in the judge's summing up; and youwill agree with me that the whole thing is a perfect art-form. Drama, at its best, is clumsy, arbitrary, unsatisfying, by comparison. Butwhat makes a law-suit the most fascinating, to me, of all art-forms, isthat not merely its material, but the chief means of its expression, islife itself. Here, cited before us, are the actual figures in theactual story that has been told to us. Here they are, not as images tobe evoked through the medium of printed page, or of painted canvas, orof disinterested ladies and gentlemen behind footlights. Actual, authentic, they stand before us, one by one, in the harsh light of day, to be made to reveal all that we need to know of them. 

The most interesting witnesses, I admit, are they who are determinednot to accommodate us--not to reveal themselves as they are, but tomake us suppose them something quite different. All witnesses are moreor less interesting. As I have suggested, there is no such thing as adull law-suit. Nothing that has happened is negligible. And, even so, every human being repays attention--especially so when he stands forthon his oath. The strangeness of his position, and his consciousness ofit, suffice in themselves to make him interesting. But it isdisingenuousness that makes him delightful. And the greatest of alldelights that a law-court can give us is a disingenuous witness who isquick-minded, resourceful, thoroughly master of himself and his story, pitted against a counsel as well endowed as himself. The most vivid andprecious of my memories is of a case in which a gentleman, now dead, was sued for breach of promise, and was cross-examined throughout awhole hot day in midsummer by the late Mr. Candy. The lady had averredthat she had known him for many years. She called various witnesses, who testified to having seen him repeatedly in her company. Sheproduced stacks of letters in a handwriting which no expert coulddistinguish from his. The defence was that these letters were writtenby the defendant's secretary, a man who was able to imitate exactly hisemployer's handwriting, and who was, moreover, physically a replica ofhis employer. He was dead now; and the defendant, though he was a verywell-known man, with many friends, was unable to adduce any one who hadseen that secretary dead or alive. Not a soul in court believed thestory. As it was a complicated story, extending over many years, todemolish it seemed child's play. Mr. Candy was no child. Hisperformance was masterly. But it was not so masterly as thedefendant's; and the suit was dismissed. In the light of common sense, the defendant hadn't a leg to stand on. Technically, his case wasproved. I doubt whether I shall ever have a day of such acute mentalenjoyment as was the day of that cross-examination. 

I suppose that the most famous cross-examination in our day was SirCharles Russell's of Pigott. It outstands by reason of the magnitude ofthe issue, and the flight and suicide of the witness. Had Pigott beenof the stuff to stand up to Russell, and make a fight of it, I shouldregret far more keenly than I do that I was not in court. As it is, myregret is keen enough. I was reading again, only the other day, theverbatim report of Pigott's evidence, in one of the series of littlepaper volumes published by The Times; and I was revelling again in thelarge perfection with which Russell accomplished his too easy task. Especially was I amazed to find how vividly Russell, as I remember him, lived again, and could be seen and heard, through the medium of thatlittle paper volume. It was not merely as though I had been in court, and were now recalling the inflections of that deep, intimidatingvoice, the steadfast gaze of those dark, intimidating eyes, and wereremembering just at what points the snuff-box was produced, and justhow long the pause was before the pinch was taken and the bandana cameinto play. It was almost as though these effects were proceeding beforemy very eyes--these sublime effects of the finest actor I have everseen. Expressed through a perfect technique, his personality wasoverwhelming. 'Come, Mr. Pigott, ' he is reported as saying, at acrucial moment, 'try to do yourself justice. Remember! you are face toface with My Lords. ' How well do I hear, in that awful hortation, Russell's pause after the word 'remember, ' and the lowered voice inwhich the subsequent words were uttered slowly, and the richness ofsolemnity that was given to the last word of all, ere the thin lipssnapped together--those lips that were so small, yet so significant, afeature of that large, white, luminous and inauspicious face. It is anhortation which, by whomsoever delivered, would tend to dispirit thebravest and most honest of witnesses. The presence of a judge isalways, as I have said, oppressive. The presence of three is trebly so. Yet not a score of them serried along the bench could have outdone inoppressiveness Sir Charles Russell. He alone, among the counsel I haveseen, was an exception to the rule that by a judge every one in courtis levelled. On the bench, in his last years, he was not notably morepredominant than he ever had been. And the reason of his predominanceat the Bar was not so much in the fact that he had no rival inswiftness, in subtlety, in grasp, as in the passionate strength of hisnature, the intensity that in him was at the root of the grand manner. 

In the courts, as in parliament and in the theatre, the grand manner isa thing of the past. Mr. Lloyd-George is not, in style and method, moreremote from Gladstone, nor Mr. George Alexander from Macready, than isMr. Rufus Isaacs, the type of modern advocate, from Russell. Strength, passion, sonorousness, magnificence of phrasing, are things which thepresent generation vaguely approves in retrospect; but it would titterat a contemporary demonstration of them. While I was reading Pigott'scross-examination, an idea struck me; why do not the managers of ourtheatres, always querulous about the dearth of plays, fall back onscenes from famous trials? A trial-scene in a play, though usuallyabsurd, is almost always popular. Why not give us actual trial-scenes?They could not, of course, be nearly so exciting as the originals, forthe simple reason that they would not be real; but they would certainlybe more exciting than the average play. Thus I mused, hopefully. But Iwas brought up sharp by the reflection that it were hopeless to lookfor an actor who could impersonate Russell--could fit his manner toRussell's words, or indeed to the words of any of those orotundadvocates. To reproduce recent trials would be a hardly warrantablething. The actual participators in them would have a right to object(delighted though many of them would be). Vain, then, is my dream oftheatres invigorated by the leavings of the law-courts. On the otherhand, for the profit of the law-courts, I have a quite practicablenotion. They provide the finest amusement in London, for nothing. Whyfor nothing? Let some scale of prices for admission be drawnup--half-a-guinea, say, for a seat in the well of the court, a shillingfor a seat in the gallery, five pounds for a seat on the bench. Then, I dare swear, people would begin to realise how fine the amusement is. 

WORDS FOR PICTURES

'HARLEQUIN'

A SIGN-BOARD, PAINTED ON COPPER, SIGNED 'W. EVANS, LONDON' CIRCA 1820

Harlequin dances, and, over the park he dances in, surely there isthunder brooding. His figure stands out, bright, large, and fantastic. But all around him is sultry twilight, and the clouds, pregnant withthunder, lower over him as he dances, and the elms are dim with unusualshadow. There is a tiny river in the dim distance. Under one of thenearest elms you may descry a square tomb, topped with an urn. Whatlord or lady underlies it? I know not. Harlequin dances. Sheathed inhis gay suit of red and green and yellow lozenges, he ambles lightlyover the gravel. At his feet lie a tambourine and a mask. Brown fernsfringe his pathway. With one hand he clasps the baton to his hip, withthe other he points mischievously to his forehead. He wears a flat, loose cap of yellow. There is a ruff about his neck, and a pair of finebuckles to his shoes, and he always dances. He has his back to thethunderclouds, but there is that in his eyes which tells us that he hasseen them, and that he knows their presage. He is afraid. Yet hedances. Never, howsoever slightly, swerves he, see! from his rightposture, nor fail his feet in their pirouette. All a' merveille! Norfades the smile from his face, though he smiles through the tarnishedair of a sultry twilight, under the shadow of impending storm. 

'THE GARDEN OF LOVE'

 A PAINTING BY RUBENS, IN THE PRADO

Here they are met. 

Here, by the balustrade, these lords and lusty ladies are met to rompand wanton in the fulness of love, under the solstice of a noon inmidsummer. Water gushes in fantastic arcs from the grotto, making acold music to the emblazoned air, while a breeze swells the sun-shotsatin of every lady's skirt, and tosses the ringlets that hang likebunches of yellow grapes on either side of her brow, and stirs theplumes of her gallant. But the very breeze is laden with heat, and thefountain's noise does but whet the thirst of the grass, the flowers, the trees. The earth sulks under the burden of the unmerciful sun. Loveitself, one had said, would be languid here, pale and supine, and, faintly sighing for things past or for future things, would sink intosiesta. But behold! these are no ordinary lovers. The gushing fountainsare likelier to run dry there in the grotto than they to falter intheir redundant energy. These sanguine lords and ladies crave not aninstant's surcease. They are tyrants and termagants of love. 

If they are thus at noon, here under the sun's rays, what, one wonders, must be their manner in the banqueting hall, when the tapers gleamadown the long tables, and the fruits are stripped of their rinds, andthe wine brims over the goblets, all to the music of the viols?Somehow, one cannot imagine them anywhere but in this sunlight. To itthey belong. They are creatures of Nature, pagans untamed, lawless andunabashed. For all they are robed in crimson and saffron, and are withsuch fine pearls necklaced, these dames do exhale from their exuberantbodies the essence of a quite primitive and simple era; but for theease of their deportment in their frippery, they might be Maenads inmasquerade. They have nothing of the coyness that civilisation fostersin women, are as fearless and unsophisticated as men. A 'wooing' werewasted on them, for they have no sense of antagonism, and seek not byany means to elude men. They meet men even as rivers meet the sea. Evenas, when fresh water meets salt water in the estuary, the two tidesrevolve in eddies and leap up in foam, so do these men and women laughand wrestle in the rapture of concurrence. How different from the firstembrace which marks the close of a wooing! that moment when the manseeks to conceal his triumph under a semblance of humility, and thewoman her humiliation under a pretty air of patronage. Here, in theGarden of Love, they have none of those spiritual reservations andpretences. Nor is here any savour of fine romance. Nothing is here butthe joy of satisfying a physical instinct--a joy that expresses itselfnot in any exaltation of words or thoughts, but in mere romping. See!Some of the women are chasing one another through the grotto. They arerushing headlong under the fountain. What though their finery besoaked? Anon they will come out and throw themselves on the grass, andthe sun will quickly dry them. 

Leave them, then, to their riot. Look upon these others who sit andstand here in a voluptuous bevy, hand in hand under the brazen sun, orflaunt to and fro, lolling in one another's arms and laughing in oneanother's faces. And see how closely above them hover the winged loves!One, upside down in the air, sprinkles them with rose-leaves; anotherwaves over them a blazing torch; another tries to frighten them withhis unarrowed bow. Another yet has dared to descend into the group; henestles his fat cheek on a lady's lap, and is not rebuked. These littlechubby Cythareans know they are privileged to play any pranks here. Doubtless they love to be on duty in this garden, for here they arepatted and petted, and have no real work to do. At close of day, whenthey fly back to their mother, there is never an unmated name in thereport they bring her; and she, belike, being pleased with them, allowsthem to sit up late, and to have each a slice of ambrosia and a sip ofnectar. But elsewhere they have hard work, and often fly back in dreadof Venus' anger. At that other balustrade, where Watteau, rememberingthis one, painted for us the 'Plaisirs du Bal, ' how often they havelain in ambush, knowing that were one of them to show but the tip ofhis wings those sedate and migniard masqueraders would faint for veryshame; yet ever hoping that they might, by their unseen presence, turnthat punctilio of flirtation into love. And always they have flown backfrom Dulwich unrequited for all the pains they had taken, and poutingthat Venus should ever send them on so hard an errand. But a day inthis garden is always for them a dear holiday. They live in dread lestVenus discover how superfluous they are here. And so, knowing that thehypocrite's first dupe must be himself, they are always pretending tothemselves that they are of some use. See that child yonder, perched onthe balustrade, reading aloud from a scroll the praise of love asearnestly as though his congregation were of infidels. And that other, to the side, pushing two lovers along as though they were the veriestlaggarts. The torch-bearer, too, and the archer, and the sprinkler ofthe rose-leaves--they are all, after their kind, trying to persuadethemselves that they are needed. All but he who leans over and nestleshis fat cheek on a lady's lap, as fondly and confidingly as though shewere his mother. .. And truly, the lady is very like his mother. So, indeed, are all the other ladies. Strange! In all their faces is anuniformity of divine splendour. Can it be that Venus, impatient of meresequences of lovers, has obtained leave of Jove to multiply herself, and that to-day by a wild coincidence her every incarnation has trystedan adorer to this same garden? Look closely! It must be so. .. 

Hush! Let us keep her secret. 

'ARIANE ET DIONYSE'

A PAINTING BY PAUL BERGERON, 1740

PAUVRETTE! no wonder she is startled. All came on her so suddenly. Amoment since, she was alone on this island. Theseus had left her. Herlover had crept from her couch as she lay sleeping, and had sailed awaywith his comrades, noiselessly, before the sun rose and woke her. 

From the top of yonder hillock she had seen the last sail of his argosyfading over the sea-line. Vainly she had waved her arms, and vainly hercries had echoed through all the island. She had run distraught throughthe valleys, the goats scampering before her to their own rocks. Shehad strayed, wildly weeping, along the shore, and the very sky hadseemed to mock her. At length, spent with sorrow and wan with hertears, she had lain upon the sand. Above her the cliff sloped gentlydown to the shore, and all around her was the hot noontide, and nosound save the rustling of the sea over the sand. Theseus had left her. The sea had taken him from her. Let the sea take her in its tide. .. . Suddenly--what was that?--she leapt up and listened. Voices, voices, the loud clash of cymbals! She looked round for some place to hide in. Too late! Some man (goat or man) came bounding towards her down thecliff. Another came after him. Then others, a whole company, and withthem many naked, abominable women, laughing and shrieking and wavingleafy wands, as they rushed down towards her. And in their midst, in abrazen chariot drawn by panthers, sped one whose yellow hair streamedfar behind him in the wind. And from his chariot he sprang and stoodbefore her. 

But she shrinks from his smile. She shrinks from the riot and ribaldrythat encompass her. She is but a young bride whom the bridegroom hasbetrayed, and she would fain be alone in the bitterness of her anguishand her humiliation. Why have they come, these creatures who arestamping and reeling round her, these flushed women who clap thecymbals, and these wild men with the hoofs and the horns of goats? Howshould they comfort her? She is not of their race; no! nor even oftheir time. She stands among them, just as Bergeron saw her, adelicate, timid figurine du dix-huitie'me sie'cle. With her powderedhair and her hooped skirt and her stiff bodice of rose silk, she seemsmore fit for the consolations of some old Monsignore than for thehomage of these frenzied Pagans and the amorous regard of their master. At him, pressing her shut fan to her lips, she is gazing across hershoulder. With one hand she seems to ward him from her. Her whole bodyis bent to flight, but she is 'affear'd of her own feet. ' She is wellenough educated to know that he who smiles at her is no mortal, butBacchus himself, the very lord of Naxos. He stands before her, thedivine debauchee racemiferis frontem circumdatus uvis; and all aroundher, a waif on his territory, are the symbols of his majesty and hispower. It is in his honour that the ivy trails down the cliff, and arenot the yews and the firs and the fig-trees that overshadow the cliff'sedge all sacred to him? and the vines beyond, are they not all his? Hisfour panthers are clawing the sand, and four tipsy Satyrs hold them, the impatient beasts, by their bridles. Another Satyr drags toexecution a goat that he has caught cropping the vine; and in hisslanted eyes one can see thirst for the blood of his poor cousin. TheMaenads are dancing in one another's arms, and their tresses are coiledand crowned with tiny serpents. One of them kneels apart, sucking agreat wine-skin. And yonder, that old cupster, Silenus, that horribleold favourite, wobbles along on a donkey, and would tumble off, you maybe sure, were he not upheld by two fairly sober Satyrs. But the eyes ofAriadne are fixed only on the smooth-faced god. See how he smiles backat her with that lascivious condescension which is all that a god'slove can be for a mortal girl! In his hand he holds a long thyrsus. Behind him is borne aloft a chaplet of seven gold stars. 

Ariadne is but a little waif in the god's power. Not Theseus himselfcould protect her. One tap of the god's wand, and, lo! she, too, wouldbe filled with the frenzy of worship, and, with a wild cry, would jointhe dancers, his for ever. But the god is not unscrupulous. He wouldfain win her by gentle and fair means, even by wedlock. That chaplet ofseven stars is his bridal offering. Why should not she accept it? Whyshould she be coy of his desire? It is true that he drinks. But intime, may be, a wife might be able to wean him from the wine-skin, andfrom the low company he affects. That will be for time to show. And, meanwhile, how brilliant a match! Not even Pasiphae, her mother, evercontemplated for her such splendour. In her great love, Ariadne riskedher whole future by eloping with Theseus. For her--the daughter of afar mightier king than Aegeus, and, on the distaff side, thegranddaughter of Apollo--even marriage with Theseus would have been ame'salliance. And now, here is a chance, a chance most marvellous, ofcovering her silly escapade. She will be sensible, I think, though sheis still a little frightened. She will accept this god's suit, if onlyto pique Theseus--Theseus, who, for all his long, tedious anecdotes ofhow he slew Procrustes and the bull of Marathon and the sow of Cromyon, would even now lie slain or starving in her father's labyrinth, had shenot taken pity on him. Yes, it was pity she felt for him. She neverloved him. And then, to think that he, a mere mortal, dared to cast heroff--oh, it is too absurd, it is too monstrous!

'PETER THE DOMINICAN'

A PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY

'Credo in Dominum' were the words this monk wrote in the dust of thehigh-road, as he lay a-dying there of Cavina's dagger; and they, according to the Dominican record, were presently washed away by hisown blood--'rapida profusio sui sanguinis delevit professionem suoefidei. ' Yet they had not been written in vain. On Cavina himself theirimpression was less delible, for did he not submit himself to theChurch, and was he not, after absolution, received into that monasterywhich his own victim had founded? Here, before this picture by Bellini, one looks instinctively for the three words in the dust. They are notyet written there; for scarcely, indeed, has the dagger been planted inthe Saint's breast. But here, to the right, on this little scroll ofparchment that hangs from a fence of osiers, there are some wordswritten, and one stoops to decipher them. .. JOANNES BELLINUS FECIT. 

Now, had the Saint and his brother Dominican not been waylaid on theirjourney, they would have passed by this very fence, and would havestooped, as we do, to decipher the scroll, and would have very muchwondered who was Bellinus, and what it was that he had done. Thewoodmen and the shepherd in the olive-grove by the roadside, thecowherds by the well, yonder--they have seen the scroll, I dare say, but they are not scholars enough to have read its letters. Cavina andhis comrade in arms, lying in wait here, probably did not observe it, so intent were they for that pious and terrible Inquisitor who was topass by. How their hearts must have leapt when they saw him, at length, with his companion, coming across that little arched bridge from thetown--a conspicuous, unmistakable figure, clad in the pied frock of hisbrotherhood and wearing the familiar halo above his closely-shorn pate. 

Cavina stands now over the fallen Saint, planting the short dagger inhis heart. The other Dominican is being chased by Cavina's comrade, hisface wreathed in a bland smile, his hands stretched childishly beforehim. Evidently he is quite unconscious how grave his situation is. Heseems to think that this pursuit is merely a game, and that if he touchthe wood of the olive-trees first, he will have won, and that then itwill be his turn to run after this man in the helmet. Or does he knowperhaps that this is but a painting, and that his pursuer will never beable to strike him, though the chase be kept up for many centuries? Inany case, his smile is not at all seemly or dramatic. And even moreextraordinary is the behaviour of the woodmen and the shepherd and thecowherds. Murder is being done within a yard or two of them, and theypay absolutely no attention. How Tacitus would have delighted in thisexample of the 'inertia rusticorum'! It is a great mistake to imaginethat dwellers in quiet districts are more easily excited by any eventthan are dwellers in packed cities. On the contrary, the very absenceof 'sensations' produces an atrophy of the senses. It is the constantsupply of 'sensations' which creates a real demand for them in cities. Suppose that in our day some specially unpopular clergyman weremartyred 'at the corner of Fenchurch Street, ' how the 'same old crush'would be intensified! But here, in this quiet glade 'twixt Milan andComo, on this quiet, sun-steeped afternoon in early Spring, with ahorrible outrage being committed under their very eyes, these callousclowns pursue their absurd avocations, without so much as resting forone moment to see what is going on. 

Cavina plants the dagger methodically, and the Inquisitor himself isevidently filled with that intense self-consciousness which sustainsall martyrs in their supreme hour and makes them, it may be, insensibleto actual pain. One feels that this martyr will write his motto in thedust with a firm hand. His whole comportment is quite exemplary. Whatirony that he should be unobserved! Even we, posterity, think far lessof St. Peter than of Bellini when we see this picture; St. Peter is nomore to us than the blue harmony of those little hills beyond, or thanthat little sparrow perched on a twig in the foreground. After all, there have been so many martyrs--and so many martyrs named Peter--butso few great painters. The little screed on the fence is no mere vainanachronism. It is a sly, rather malicious symbol. PERIIT PETRUS:BILLINUS FECIT, as who should say. 

'L'OISEAU BLEU'

A PAINTING ON SILK BY CHARLES CONDER

Over them, ever over them, floats the Blue Bird; and they, theennuye'es and the ennuyants, the ennuyantes and the ennuye's, theseParisians of 1830, are lolling in a charmed, charming circle, whilsttwo of their order, the young Duc de Belhabit et Profil-Perdu with thegirl to whom he has but recently been married, move hither or thithervaguely, their faces upturned, making vain efforts to lure down theelusive creature. The haze of very early morning pervades the gardenwhich is the scene of their faint aspiration. One cannot see veryclearly there. The ladies' furbelows are blurred against the foliage, and the lilac-bushes loom through the air as though they were whiteclouds full of rain. One cannot see the ladies' faces very clearly. Oneguesses them, though, to be supercilious and smiling, all with thecurved lips and the raised eyebrows of Experience. For, in their time, all these ladies, and all their lovers with them, have tried to catchthis same Blue Bird, and have been full of hope that it would comefluttering down to them at last. Now they are tired of trying, knowingthat to try were foolish and of no avail. Yet it is pleasant for themto see, as here, others intent on the old pastime. Perhaps--whoknows?--some day the bird will be trapped. .. Ah, look! Monsieur Le Ducalmost touched its wing! Well for him, after all, that he did not morethan that! Had he caught it and caged it, and hung the gilt cage in theboudoir of Madame la Duchesse, doubtless the bird would have turned outto be but a moping, drooping, moulting creature, with not a song to itslittle throat; doubtless the blue colour is but dye, and would soonhave faded from wings and breast. And see! Madame la Duchesse looks ashade fatigued. She must not exert herself too much. Also, the magichour is all but over. Soon there will be sunbeams to dispel the dawn'svapour; and the Blue Bird, with the sun sparkling on its wings, willhave soared away out of sight. Allons! The little rogue is still atlarge. 

'MACBETH AND THE WITCHES'

A PAINTING BY COROT, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION

Look! Across the plain yonder, those three figures, dark and gauntagainst the sky. .. . Who are they? What are they? One of them ispointing with rigid arm towards the gnarled trees that from thehillside stretch out their storm-broken boughs and ragged leavesagainst the sky. Shifting thither, my eye discerns through the shadowstwo horsemen, riding slowly down the incline. Hush! I hold up a warningfinger to my companion, lest he move. On what strange and secret trysthave we stumbled? They must not know they are observed. Could we creepcloser up to them? Nay, the plain is so silent: they would hear us; andso barren: they would surely see us. Here, under cover of this rock, wecan crouch and watch them. .. . We discern now more clearly those threeexpectants. One of them has a cloak of faded blue; it is fluttering inthe wind. Women or men are they? Scarcely human they seem: inauspiciousbeings from some world of shadows, magically arisen through thatplatform of broken rock whereon they stand. The air around, even thefair sky above, is fraught by them with I know not what of subtle bale. One would say they had been waiting here for many days, motionless, eager but not impatient, knowing that at this hour the two horsemenwould come. And we--it is strange--have we not ere now beheld themwaiting? In some waking dream, surely, we have seen them, and now dimlyrecognise them. And the two horsemen, forcing their steeds down theslope--them, too, we have seen, even so. The light through a break inthe trees faintly reveals them to us. They are accoutred in blackarmour. They seem not to be yet aware of the weird figures confrontingthem across the plain. But the horses, with some sharper instinct, areaware and afraid, straining, quivering. One of them throws back itshead, but dares not whinny. As though under some evil spell, all natureseems to be holding its breath. Stealthily, noiselessly, I turn theleaves of my catalogue. .. 'Macbeth and the Witches. ' Why, of course!

Of the two horsemen, which is Macbeth, which Banquo? Though we peerintently, we cannot in those distant shadows distinguish which is hethat shall be king hereafter, which is he that shall merely begetkings. It is mainly in virtue of this very vagueness and mystery ofmanner that the picture is so impressive. An illustration should stirour fancy, leaving it scope and freedom. Most illustrations, beingdefinite, do but affront us. Usually, Shakespeare is illustrated bysome Englishman overawed by the poet's repute, and incapable oftreating him, as did Corot, vaguely and offhand. Shakespeare expressedhimself through human and superhuman characters; therefore in Englandnone but a painter of figures would dare illustrate him. Had Corot beenan Englishman, this landscape would have had nothing to do withShakespeare. Luckily, as an alien, he was untrammelled by piety to thepoet. He could turn Shakespeare to his own account. In this picture, obviously, he was creating, and only in a secondary sense illustrating. For him the landscape was the thing. Indeed, the five little figuresmay have been inserted by him as an afterthought, to point and balancethe composition. Vaguely he remembered hearing of Macbeth, or readingit in some translation. Ce Sac-espe're. .. Un beau talent. .. Ne'romantique. Hugo he would not have attempted to illustrate. ButSac-espe're--why not? And so the little figures came upon the canvas, dim sketches. Charles Lamb disliked theatrical productions ofShakespeare's plays, because of the constraint thus laid on hisimagination. But in the theatre, at least, we are diverted by movement, recompensed by the sound of the poet's words and (may be) by humanintelligence interpreting his thoughts; whereas from a definitepainting of Shakespearean figures we get nothing but an equivalent forthe mimes' appearance: nothing but the painter's bare notion (probablyquite incongruous with our notion) of what these figures ought to looklike. Take Macbeth as an instance. From a definite painting of him whatdo we get? At worst, the impression of a kilted man with a red beardand red knees, brandishing a claymore. At best, a sombre barbariandoing nothing in particular. In either case, all the atmosphere, allthe character, all the poetry, all that makes Macbeth live for us, islost utterly. If these definite illustrations of Shakespeare's humanfigures affront us, how much worse is it when an artist tries his handat the figures that are superhuman! Imagine an English illustrator'sprojection of the weird sisters--with long grey beards duly growing ontheir chins, and belike one of them duly holding in her hand a pilot'sthumb. It is because Corot had no reverence for Shakespeare'stext--because he was able to create in his own way, with scarcely athought of Shakespeare, an independent masterpiece--that this pictureis worthy of its theme. The largeness of the landscape in proportion tothe figures seems to show us the tragedy in its essential relation tothe universe. We see the heath lying under infinity, under true sky andwinds. No hint of the theatre is there. All is as the poet may haveconceived it in his soul. And for us Corot's brush-work fills the placeof Shakespeare's music. Time has tessellated the surface of the canvas;but beauty, intangible and immortal, dwells in its depthssafely--dwells there even as it dwells in the works of Shakespeare, though the folios be foxed and seared. 

The longer we gaze, the more surely does the picture illude us andenthral us, steeping us in that tragedy of 'the fruitless crown andbarren sceptre. ' We forget all else, watching the unkind witches asthey await him whom they shall undo, driving him to deeds he dreams notof, and beguiling him, at length, to his doom. Against 'the set of sun'they stand forth, while he who shall be king hereafter, with thecomrade whom he shall murder, rides down to them, guileless of aughtthat shall be. Privy to his fate, we experience a strange compassion. Anon the fateful colloquy will begin. 'All hail, Macbeth' the unearthlyvoices will be crying across the heath. Can nothing be done? Can westand quietly here while. .. Nay, hush! We are powerless. These witches, if we tried to thwart them, would swiftly blast us. There are thingswith which no mortal must meddle. There are things which no mortal mustbehold. Come away!

So, casting one last backward look across the heath, we, under cover ofthe rock, steal fearfully away across the parquet floor of the gallery. 

'CARLOTTA GRISI'

A COLOURED PRINT

It is not among the cardboard glades of the King's Theatre, nor, indeed, behind any footlights, but in a real and twilit garden thatGrisi, gimp-waisted sylphid, here skips for posterity. To her right, the roses on the trellis are not paper roses--one guesses them quitefragrant. And that is a real lake in the distance; and those delicatepale trees around it, they too are quite real. Yes! surely this is thegarden of Grisi's villa at Uxbridge; and her guests, quoting LordByron's 'al fresco, nothing more delicious, ' have tempted her to adaring by-show of her genius. To her left there is a stone cross, whichhas been draped by one of the guests with a scarf bearing the legendGISELLE. It is Sunday evening, I fancy, after dinner. Cannot one seethe guests, a group entranced by its privilege--the ladies withbandeaux and with little shawls to ward the dew from their shoulders;the gentlemen, D'Orsayesque all, forgetting to puff the cigars whichthe ladies, 'this once, ' have suffered them to light? One sees themthere; but they are only transparent phantoms between us and Grisi, notinterrupting our vision. As she dances--the peerless Grisi!--onefancies that she is looking through them at us, looking across the agesto us who stand looking back at her. Her smile is but the formalCupid's-bow of the ballerina; but I think there is a clairvoyance ofposterity in the large eyes, and, in the pose, a self-consciousnesssubtler than merely that of one who, dancing, leads all men by theheart-strings. A something is there which is almost shyness. Clearly, she knows it to be thus that she will be remembered; feels this to bethe moment of her immortality. Her form is all but in profile, swayingfar forward, but her face is full-turned to us. Her arms float upon theair. Below the stark ruff of muslin about her waist, her legs are as atilted pair of compasses; one point in the air, the other impinging theground. One tiptoe poised ever so lightly upon the earth, as though themuslin wings at her shoulders were not quite strong enough to bear herup into the sky! So she remains, hovering betwixt two elements; acreature exquisitely ambiguous, being neither aerial nor of the earth. She knows that she is mortal, yet is conscious of apotheosis. She knowsthat she, though herself must perish, is imperishable; for she sees us, her posterity, gazing fondly back at her. She is touched. And we, alittle envious of those who did once see Grisi plain, always shall findsolace in this pretty picture of her; holding it to be, for all theartificiality of its convention, as much more real as it is prettierthan the stringent ballet-girls of Degas. 

'HO-TEI'

A COLOURED DRAWING BY HOKUSAI

What monster have we here? Who is he that sprawls thus, ventrirotund, against the huge oozing wine-skin? Wide his nose, narrowly-slit hiseyes, and with little teeth he smiles at us through a beard of brightrusset--a beard soft as the russet coat of a squirrel, and sprouting inseveral tiers according to the several chins that ascend behind it fromhis chest. Nude he is but for a few dark twists of drapery. One dimpledfoot is tucked under him, the other cocked before him. With abifurcated fist (such is his hand) he pillows the bald dome of hishead. He seems to be very happy, sprawling here in the twilight. Thewine oozes from the wine-skin; but he, replete, takes no heed of it. Onthe ground before him are a few almond-blossoms, blown there by thewind. He is snuffing their fragrance, I think. 

Who is he? 'Ho-Tei, ' you tell me; 'god of increase, god of thecorn-fields and rice-fields, patron of all little children in Japan--ablend of Dionysus and Santa Claus. ' So? Then his look belies him. He isfar too fat to care for humanity, too gross to be divine. I suspect heis but some self-centred sage, whom Hokusai beheld with his own eyes ina devious corner of Yedo. A hermit he is, surely; one not more affablethan Diogenes, yet wiser than he, being at peace with himself andfinding (as it were) the honest man without emerging from his own tub;a complacent Diogenes; a Diogenes who has put on flesh. Looking at him, one is reminded of that over-swollen monster gourd which to young NevilBeauchamp and his Marquise, as they saw it from their river-boat, 'hanging heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow cheek, inprolonged contemplation of its image in the mirror below, ' sosinisterly recalled Monsieur le Marquis. But to us this 'self-adored, gross bald Cupid' has no such symbolism, and we revel aswhole-heartedly as he in his monstrous contours. 'I am very beautiful, 'he seems to murmur. And we endorse the boast. At the same time, wetransfer to Hokusai the credit which this glutton takes all to himself. It is Hokusai who made him, delineating his paunch in that one softsummary curve, and echoing it in the curve of the wine-skin that swellsaround him. Himself, as a living man, were too loathsome for words; buthere, thanks to Hokusai, he is not less admirable than Pheidias'Hermes, or the Discobolus himself. Yes! Swathed in his abominablesurplusage of bulk, he is as fair as any statue of astricted god orathlete that would suffer not by incarnation. .. 

Presently, we forget again that he is unreal. He seems alive to us, andsomehow he is still beautiful. 'It is a beauty, ' like that of MonaLisa, 'wrought out from within upon the flesh, the' adipose 'deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries andexquisite passions. ' It is the beauty of real fatness--that fatnesswhich comes from within, and reacts on the soul that made it, untilsoul and body are one deep harmony of fat; that fatness which gave usthe geniality of Silenus, of the late Major O'Gorman; which soothes allnerves in its owner, and creates the earthy, truistic wisdom of SanchoPauza, of Francisque Sarcey; which makes a man selfish, because thereis so much of him, and venerable because he seems to be a knoll of thevery globe we live on, and lazy inasmuch as the form of governmentunder which he lives is an absolute gastrocracy--the belly tyrannisingover the members whom it used to serve, and wielding its power asunscrupulously as none but a promoted slave could. 

Such is the true fatness. It is not to be confounded with merestoutness. Contrast with this Japanese sage that orgulous hidalgo who, in black velvet, defies modern Prussia from one of Velasquez's canvasesin Berlin. Huge is that other, and gross; and, so puffed his cheeks arethat the light, cast up from below, strives vainly to creep over themto his eyes, like a tourist vainly striving to creep over a boulder ona mountainside. Yet is he not of the hierarchy of true fatness. Hebears his bulk proudly, and would sit well any charger that were strongenough to bear him, and, if such a steed were not in stables, wouldwalk the distance swingingly. He is a man of action, a fighter, aninsolent dominator of men and women. In fact, he is merely a stoutman--uniform with Porthos, and Arthur Orton, and Sir John Falstaff;spiced, like them, with charlatanism and braggadocio, and not the lessa fine fellow for that. Indeed, such bulk as his and theirs is in thesame kind as that bulk which, lesser in degree, is indispensable togreatness in practical affairs. No man, as Prince Bismarck declared, isto be trusted in state-craft until he can show a stomach. A lack ofstomach betokens lack of mental solidity, of humanity, of capacity forgoing through with things; and these three qualities are essential tostatesmanship. Poets and philosophers can afford to be thin--cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as poetry and philosophythrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach ballasts you to earth. Such ballast the statesman must have. Thin statesmen may destroy, butconstruct they cannot; have achieved chaos, but cosmos never. 

But why prate history, why evoke phantoms of the past, when we can gazeon this exquisitely concrete thing--this glad and simple creature ofHokusai? Let us emulate his calm, enjoy his enjoyment as he sprawlsbefore us--pinguis, iners, placidus--in the pale twilight. Let us notseek to identify him as god or mortal, nor guess his character from hisform. Rather, let us take him as he is; for all time the perfect typeof fatness. 

Lovely and excessive monster! Monster immensurable! What belt couldinclip you? What blade were long enough to prick the heart of you?

'THE VISIT'

A PAINTING BY GEORGE MORLAND, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION

Never, I suppose, was a painter less maladif in his work than Morland, that lover of simple and sun-bright English scenes. Probably, thispicture of his is all cheerful in intention. Yet the effect of it issaddening. 

Superficially, the scene is cheerful enough. Our first impression is ofa happy English home, of childish high-spirits and pretty manners. Wenote how genial a lady is the visitor, and how eager the children areto please. One of them trips respectfully forward--a wave of yellowcurls fresh and crisp from the brush, a rustle of white muslin freshand crisp from the wash. She is supported on one side by her grown-upsister, on the other by her little brother, who displays the nectarinealready given to him by the kind lady. Splendid in far-reachingfurbelows, that kind lady holds out both her hands, beamingencouragement. On her ample lap is a little open basket with other ripenectarines in it--one for every child. 

Modest, demure, the girl trips forward as though she were dancing aquadrille. In the garden, just beyond the threshold, stand two smallersisters, shyly awaiting their turn. They, too, are in theirSunday-best, and on the tiptoe of excitement--infant coryphe'es, inwhom, as they stand at the wings, stage-fright is overborne by thedesire to be seen and approved. I fancy they are rehearsing under theirbreath the 'Yes, ma' am, ' and the 'No, ma'am, ' and the 'I thank you, ma'am, very much, ' which their grown-up sister has been drilling intothem during the hurried toilet they have just been put through inhonour of this sudden call. 

How anxious their mother is during the ceremony of introduction! Howkeenly, as she sits there, she keeps her eyes fixed on the visitor'sface! Maternal anxiety, in that gaze, seems to be intensified by socialhumility. For this is no ordinary visitor. It is some great lady of thecounty, very rich, of high fashion, come from a great mansion in agreat park, bringing fruit from one of her own many hot-houses. Thatshe has come at all is an act of no slight condescension, and themother feels it. Even so did homely Mrs. Fairchild look up to LadyNoble. Indeed, I suspect that this visitor is Lady Noble herself, andthat the Fairchilds themselves are neighbours of this family. Thesechildren have been coached to say 'Yes, my lady, ' and 'No, my lady, 'and 'I thank you, my lady, very much'; and their mother has alreadybeen hoping that Mrs. Fairchild will haply pass through the lane andsee the emblazoned yellow chariot at the wicket. But just now she isall maternal--'These be my jewels. ' See with what pride she fingers thesampler embroidered by one of her girls, knowing well that 'spoilt'Miss Augusta Noble could not do such embroidery to save her life--thatlife which, through her Promethean naughtiness in playing with fire, she was so soon to lose. 

Other exemplary samplers hang on the wall yonder. On the mantelshelfstands a slate, with an ink-pot and a row of tattered books, and othertokens of industry. The schoolroom, beyond a doubt. Lady Noble hasexpressed a wish to see the children here, in their own haunt, and herhostess has led the way hither, somewhat flustered, gasping manyapologies for the plainness of the apartment. A plain apartment it is:dark, bare-boarded, dingy-walled. And not merely a material gloompervades it. There is a spiritual gloom, also--the subtly oppressiveatmosphere of a room where life has not been lived happily. 

Though these children are cheerful now, it is borne in on us by theatmosphere (as preserved for us by Morland's master-hand) that theirlife is a life of appalling dismalness. Even if we had nothing else togo on, this evidence of our senses were enough. But we have otherthings to go on. We know well the way in which children of this periodwere brought up. We remember the life of 'The Fairchild Family, ' thoseputative neighbours of this family--in any case, its obviouscontemporaries; and we know that the life of those hapless little prigswas typical of child-life in the dawn of the nineteenth century. Dependon it, this family (whatever its name may be: the Thompsons, Iconjecture) is no exception to the dismal rule. In this schoolroom, every day is a day of oppression, of forced endeavour to reach animpossible standard of piety and good conduct--a day of tears andtexts, of texts quoted and tears shed, incessantly, from morning untoevening prayers. After morning prayers (read by Papa), breakfast. Thebread-and-butter of which, for the children, this meal consists, mustbe eaten (slowly) in a silence by them unbroken except with promptanswers to such scriptural questions as their parents (who haveham-and-eggs) may, now and again, address to them. After breakfast, theCatechism (heard by Mamma). After the Catechism, a hymn to be learnt. After the repetition of this hymn, arithmetic, caligraphy, the use ofthe globes. At noon, a decorous walk with Papa, who for their benefitdiscourses on the General Depravity of Mankind in all Countries afterthe Fall, occasionally pausing by the way to point for them some moralof Nature. After a silent dinner, the little girls sew, under thesupervision of Mamma, or of the grown-up sister, or of both theseauthorities, till the hour in which (if they have sewn well) they reappermission to play (quietly) with their doll. A silent supper, afterwhich they work samplers. Another hymn to be learnt and repeated. Evening prayers. Bedtime: 'Good-night, dear Papa; good-night, dearMamma. '

Such, depend on it, is the Thompsons' curriculum. What a painfulsequence of pictures a genre-painter might have made of it! Let us bethankful that we see the Thompsons only in this brief interlude oftheir life, tearless and unpinafored, in this hour of strangeexcitement, glorying in that Sunday-best which on Sundays is to thembut a symbol of intenser gloom. 

But their very joy is in itself tragic. It reveals to us, in a flash, the tragedy of their whole existence. That so much joy should resultfrom mere suspension of the usual re'gime, the sight of Lady Noble, theanticipation of a nectarine! For us there is no comfort in theknowledge that their present degree of joy is proportionate to theirusual degree of gloom, that for them the Law of Compensation drops intothe scale of these few moments an exact counter-weight of joy to themisery accumulated in the scale of all their other moments. We, who donot live their life, who regard Lady Noble as a mere Hecuba, and whowould accept one of her nectarines only in sheer politeness, cannotrejoice with them that do rejoice thus, can but pity them for all thathas led up to their joy. We may reflect that the harsh system on whichthey are reared will enable them to enjoy life with infinite gusto whenthey are grown up, and that it is, therefore, a better system than theindulgent modern one. We may reflect, further, that it produces a finertype of man or woman, less selfish, better-mannered, more capable anduseful. The pretty grown-up daughter here, leading her little sister bythe hand, so gracious and modest in her mien, so sunny andaffectionate, so obviously wholesome and high-principled--is she not awalking testimonial to the system? Yet to us the system is not the lessrepulsive in itself. Its results may be what you please, but itspractice were impossible. We are too tender, too sentimental. We havenot the nerve to do our duty to children, nor can we bear to think ofany one else doing it. To children we can do nothing but 'spoil' them, nothing but bless their hearts and coddle their souls, taking nothought for their future welfare. And we are justified, maybe, in ourflight to this opposite extreme. Nobody can read one line ahead in thebook of fate. No child is guaranteed to become an adult. Any child maydie to-morrow. How much greater for us the sting of its death if itslife shall not have been made as pleasant as possible! What if itsshort life shall have been made as unpleasant as possible? Conceive theremorse of Mrs. Thompson here if one of her children were to dieuntimely--if one of them were stricken down now, before her eyes, bythis surfeit of too sudden joy!

However, we do not fancy that Mrs. Thompson is going to be thusafflicted. We believe that there is a saving antidote in the cup of herchildren's joy. There is something, we feel, that even now preventsthem from utter ecstasy. Some shadow, even now, hovers over them. Whatis it? It is not the mere atmosphere of the room, so oppressive to us. It is something more definite than that, and even more sinister. Itlooms aloft, monstrously, like one of those grotesque actual shadowswhich a candle may cast athwart walls and ceiling. Whose shadow is it?we wonder, and, wondering, become sure that it is Mr. Thompson's--Papa's. 

The papa of Georgian children! We know him well, that awfully massiveand mysterious personage, who seemed ever to his offspring so remotewhen they were in his presence, so frighteningly near when they wereout of it. In Mrs. Turner's Cautionary Stories in Verse he occurs againand again. Mr. Fairchild was a perfect type of him. Mr. Bennet, whenthe Misses Lizzie, Jane and Lydia were in pinafores, must have beenanother perfect type: we can reconstruct him as he was then from themany fragments of his awfulness which still clung to him when the girlshad grown up. John Ruskin's father, too, if we read between the linesof Praeterita, seems to have had much of the authentic monster abouthim. He, however, is disqualified as a type by the fact that he was 'anentirely honest merchant. ' For one of the most salient peculiarities inthe true Georgian Papa was his having apparently no occupationwhatever--his being simply and solely a Papa. Even in social life hebore no part: we never hear of him calling on a neighbour or beingcalled on. Even in his own household he was seldom visible. Except attheir meals, and when he took them for their walk, and when they weresent to him to be reprimanded, his children never beheld him in theflesh. Mamma, poor lady, careful of many other things, superintendedher children unremittingly, to keep them in the thorny way they shouldgo. Hers the burden and heat of every day, hers to double the roles ofMartha and Cornelia, that her husband might be left ever calmly aloofin that darkened room, the Study. There, in a high armchair, with onestout calf crossed over the other, immobile throughout the long hourssate he, propping a marble brow on a dexter finger of the samematerial. On the table beside him was a vase of flowers, dailyreplenished by the children, and a closed volume. It is remarkable thatin none of the many woodcuts in which he has been handed down to us dowe see him reading; he is always meditating on something he has justread. Occasionally, he is fingering a portfolio of engravings, orleaning aside to examine severely a globe of the world. That is thenearest he ever gets to physical activity. In him we see the staticembodiment of perfect wisdom and perfect righteousness. We take him athis own valuation, humbly. Yet we have a queer instinct that there wasa time when he did not diffuse all this cold radiance of good example. Something tells us that he has been a sinner in his day--a rattler ofthe ivories at Almack's, and an ogler of wenches in the gardens ofVauxhall, a sanguine backer of the Negro against the Suffolk Bantam, and a devil of a fellow at boxing the watch and wrenching the knockerswhen Bow Bells were chiming the small hours. Nor do we feel that he isa penitent. He is too Olympian for that. He has merely put these thingsbehind him--has calmly, as a matter of business, transferred hisaccount from the worldly bank to the heavenly. He has seen fit tobecome 'Papa. ' As such, strong in the consciousness of his ownperfection, he has acquired, gradually, quasi-divine powers over hischildren. Himself invisible, we know that he can always see them. Himself remote, we know that he is always with them, and that alwaysthey feel his presence. He prevents them in all their ways. The MormonEye is not more direly inevitable than he. Whenever they offend in wordor deed, he knows telepathically, and fixes their punishment, longbefore they are arraigned at his judgment-seat. 

At this moment, as at all others, Mr. Thompson has his inevitable eyeon his children, and they know that it is on them. He is well enoughpleased with them at this moment. But alas! we feel that ere the sunsets they will have incurred his wrath. Presently Lady Noble will havefinished her genial inspection, and have sailed back, under convoy ofthe mother and the grown-up daughter, to the parlour, there to partakeof that special dish of tea which is even now being brewed for her. When the children are left alone, their pent excitement will overflowand wash them into disgrace. Belike, they will quarrel over thenectarines. There will be bitter words, and a pinch, and a scratch, anda blow, screams, a scrimmage. The rout will be heard afar in theparlour. The grown-up sister will hasten back and be beheld suddenly, aquelling figure, on the threshold: 'For shame, Clara! Mary, I wonder atyou! Henry, how dare you, sir? Silence, Ethel! Papa shall hear ofthis. ' Flushed and rumpled, the guilty four will hang their heads, cowed by authority and by it perversely reconciled one with another. Authority will bid them go upstairs 'this instant, ' there to shed theirfinery and resume the drab garb of every day. From the bedroom-windowsthey will see Lady Noble step into her yellow chariot and drive away. Envy--an inarticulate, impotent envy--will possess their hearts: whycannot they be rich, and grown-up, and bowed to by every one? When thechariot is out of sight, envy will be superseded by the play-instinct. Silently, in their hearts, the children will play at being LadyNoble. .. . Mamma's voice will be heard on the stairs, rasping them backto the realities. Sullenly they will go down to the schoolroom, andresume their tasks. But they will not be able to concentrate theirunsettled minds. The girls will make false stitches in the pillow-slipswhich they had been hemming so neatly when the yellow chariot drove upto the front-door; and Master Harry will be merely dazed by that pageof the Delectus which he had almost got by heart. Their discontent willbe inspissated by the knowledge that they are now worse-off thanever--are in dire disgrace, and that even now the grown-up sister is'telling Papa' (who knows already, and has but awaited the formalcomplaint). Presently the grown-up sister will come into theschoolroom, looking very grave: 'Children, Papa has something to say toyou. ' In the Study, to which, quaking, they will proceed, an endlesssermon awaits them. The sin of Covetousness will be expatiated on, andthe sins of Discord and Hatred, and the eternal torment in store forevery child who is guilty of them. All four culprits will be in tearssoon after the exordium. Before the peroration (a graphic descriptionof the Lake of Fire) they will have become hysterical. They will besent supperless to bed. On the morrow they will have to learn andrepeat the chapter about Cain and Abel. A week, at least, will haveelapsed before they are out of disgrace. Such are the inevitableconsequences of joy in a joyless life. It were well for these childrenhad 'The Visit' never been paid. 

Morland, I suppose, discerned naught of all this tragedy in hispicture. To him, probably, the thing was an untainted idyll, was butone of those placid homely scenes which he loved as dearly as couldnone but the brawler and vagabond that he was. And yet. .. And yet. .. Perhaps he did intend something of what we discern here. He may havebeen thinking, bitterly, of his own childhood, and of the home he ranaway from. 

'YET AGAIN'

SOME CRITICISMS OF THE FIRST EDITION

Mr. Edmund Gosse, in THE WORLD: 'We may find it hard to realise thatMax may become a classic, but I see no other essayist who seems to havemore chance of it. .. . There is no question of "reserved places" onParnassus, but it is my individual conviction that where La Bruye'reand Addison and Stevenson are, there Max will be. .. . It is perhaps hisfinal charm as an essayist that, underneath a ceremonious style, anexquisite demeanour and advance, a low voice, a graceful hearing, apolished cadence, there exists a powerful, sometimes what almost seemsa furious independence of character. '

THE TIMES: 'So few men can trifle without being silly or be intimatewithout being tiresome, so few have either the mental power or theunity of vision necessary for a decent transition from mood to mood, that essayists fit to be ranked with Steele, Addison, Stevenson, arestill few. Mr. Max Beerbohm has proved his title. .. . There, where everyidea is the author's, and every phrase is scrupulously adapted to thebest expression by the author of his own idea, we get the trueoriginality in art. Through all the play of fancy, the wit and humour, the swift transitions, the caprice and jesting, that ultimate sincerityshines; and it is that which lights Mr. Beerbohm's fine taste andknowledge of his craft to beauty. '

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: 'As an artist whose medium is the essay, Mr. MaxBeerbohm should stand for this generation as Lamb stands for the firstgeneration of the nineteenth century. '

THE DAILY NEWS: 'He has wit, and charm, and good humour--and these arethe qualities which characterise this completely delightful volume ofessays. '

THE MORNING LEADER: 'Max sees himself in a hundred different ways. Inany capacity he is unique. He remains our best essayist. '

THE OBSERVER: 'Charles Lamb a' la Max is never obtrusive. It is onlythe ghost of him that stalks in and about. We soon fall away from thereminiscence; and the caricaturist becomes a personality. '

Mr. Sidney Dark in THE DAILY EXPRESS: 'Max is always delightful in hisdainty, leisurely tolerance of everybody and everything. No otherliving writer could have produced "Yet Again. " It is individual--andthoroughly good to read. '

THE EVENING STANDARD: 'Mr. Beerbohm is always in holiday mood; and thiswe gradually catch from him. We begin by enjoying him; we end byenjoying life and ourselves. '

THE NATION: 'Blessed are they who possess the gift of extractingsunbeams from cucumbers. .. . The simplicity of Mr. Beerbohm's themesserves but to enhance the elegance of his mind. '

Mr. G. S. Street in THE ENGLISHWOMAN: 'I trust sincerely I shall notdamage his reputation if I say that the play of his fancy is neverinconsistent with two strong qualities of his mind and temperament, asound judgment and a kindly heart. '

Mr. W. H. Chesson in THE DAILY CHRONICLE: 'He is undoubtedly one of ourbenefactors. He excels in the humour which creates humour. '

THE GLOBE: 'In their different ways, all these essays will delight theappreciative reader, and we can only bid him or her buy, beg, borrow, or steal Max's latest volume immediately. '

Mr. James Douglas in LONDON OPINION: 'The style of these essays is noteccentric, and yet it is dyed with the hues of a personality as richand rare as Elia's own, There is no contemporary prose which is souncorrupted by current influences, and which is so sure to defy thecorrosion of time. In a hundred years it will not be a dated orderelict thing. Its colour and its cadence will delight the connoisseurthen as the colour and cadence of Lamb's prose delights him now. '

THE MORNING POST: 'He is naturally gifted with something that is calledtalent in life and genius after death. '